AEREOGRAMME
My Hear Has a Wish That You Would Not Go
Sonic Unyon
· A softer, gentler Aereogramme.
At first listen, the new full-length from Aereogramme doesn’t seem to be in line with the noisy, violent screaming that the Scottish quartet pioneered on its first three albums. That’s not to say that these noise rockers didn’t have pretty moments, but they were often offset by the guttural wail of front man Craig B. Between albums, Craig was sent to hospital to have nodes surgically removed from this throat and doctors told him that his vocal cords couldn’t handle the strain of his vocal delivery. His reaction – he learned to sing.
While the band often had a lot in common with fellow Glaswegians, Mogwai, these days people are accusing the band of jumping on the Coldplay/Snow Patrol sensitive-popster bandwagon. True, there are shimmering crystalline moments on My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go, but that owes more to the lush string arrangements than it does to a decisive move towards commercial radio play. Craig’s falsetto is both lovely and haunting – a perfect match for the music. This new batch of songs plays with a keen ear for dynamics. There are epic swells of guitar and piano that could play as perfect soundtrack music, but it’s balanced with ominous orchestral passages and oddly tweaked programming. The album sounds like a reinvention, which may dishearten longtime fans, but for those who prefer melody to screeching, this is a big evolutionary step forward for an already great band.
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