• Drone-rockers’ new sound worth getting used to.
There are some groups who have such a distinct and defined sound that it’s hard to imagine them doing anything else. Picture Godspeed You! Black Emperor trading their epic builds for the plods of a straight-ahead pop song, or finding some basement jams of Sigur Ros doing polka songs — it just wouldn’t be right.
Growing’s sound is like nothing else — dense walls of noise that carry melodies so primal, they invoke pure, jarring emotion in the listener. That said, after over half a dozen releases, the band has decided to trade in their dense, melodic cacophony for something more reminiscent of the tribal rhythms of Black Dice or Street Horrrsing by Fuck Buttons. Granted, this isn’t pointing the band in a completely different direction, but the difference is enough to be fairly distracting on first listen.
Like many great records, though, All the Way rewards repeat listening. The rhythms are structured masterpieces of melodic static and pulsing synthesizers that can even elicit dancey head-bobs. While it’s unlikely that Growing will be a hit on dance floors anytime soon, the band’s newfound balance of pop and noise is truly praise-worthy.
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