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Rooftops

A Forest Of Polarity

Written by: PP on 16/05/2010 02:36:26

If you like math rock, you'll love Rooftops. It's as simple as that. This Bellingham, Washington outfit relies on a mostly instrumental landscape, placing strong focus on their light math rock guitars that just ooze summer and intricate detail, adding in some post-rock atmospheric buildups whenever necessary. It'd be fair to say that on "A Forest Of Polarity", they're floating back and forth between straight forward math rock and post-rock throughout the record.

The album is mostly instrumental like I said, but it has some dreamy, high-pitch vocals in the mix on a couple of tracks, but these are purposefully faded to the background of the soundscape so as to not take your attention away from the complexity level of the guitars that, in places, is breathtaking. Think that song "26 Is Dancier Than 4" by This Town Needs Guns, or any Damiera song from "M(US)IC". The percussion work of Wendelin Wohlgemuth is impressive too, as he shifts between intricate polyrhythms to simplistic patterns at such ease that it should leave most drummers drooling. As an additional bonus, the band integrates some unusual instruments to the mix, too, as seen in the addition of trumpets (I think?) to "Year As Lift", but luckily these never feel out of place and actually add another layer to the band's instrumental arsenal.

Given there are no vocals, there's little else to talk about on this album. So I'll just leave you with the recommending notion that "A Forest Of Polarity" is very good at what it does. If you didn't like instrumental rock before, this is not the album that'll change your mind, but if you find acts like Don Caballero and Pelican slightly too heavy and long-winded, there's something to check out here, for sure.

Download: Astray Life, Year As Lift, Raft Easily
For the fans of: American Football, Damiera, Castevet, This Town Needs Guns
Listen: Myspace

Release date 18.05.2010
Clickpop Records