The classic idea of the sort of band that one might expect to find on Thrill Jockey seems to be blown apart with every new release. Iowa City’s Aseethe are a great case in point with their second album for the label upping the heavy ante to monolithic proportions.
Sounding more like someone you would find on Southern Lord or even early Earache, they turn the volume and sustain way up, and turn the tempo way down to grinding pace. Spreading the album over five tracks allows the songs to unfurl at a natural — or taking into account the distorted vocals, an unnatural pace. For a power trio, they sure do have a lot of power, and with both guitarist Brian Barr and bassist Noah Koester sharing the vocal duties, they generate a lot of uncomfortable textures.
To accompany these forces of unnature, they have taken the classic guitar, bass, drums trio and filled it with the slow anguish of tortured guitars and the thundering cacophony of an earth-moving rhythm section. The bass is subterranean most of the time, shifting the rhythm along from underground like some musical equivalent of the creatures in Tremors, stealthy yet enormous. Everything that is above ground is teeming with sustain from the guitar as it rears up from the deep, unleashing a screech of abandon to the wash of the cymbals, the two sounds melding as the momentum drops and the sounds decay, only to surge back with the next stroke of the strings.
This gentle intro lark works best on ten-minute closer “Our Worth Is The New Measure”, where the slow, imperious start creates a bed of tension which the short ventral section attempts to dissipate, before the even longer outro takes over. It is here that their love of sustain and decay, and their use of space and silence, is most evident. It lasts for ages, and with each chord ascending into sparkling feedback, the anticipation of which will be the final chord is full of tension. When it finally arrives, it comes with a sense of relief, and you can stop clenching your fists again.
-Mr Olivetti-