All The Saints – Intro to Fractions equals sonar delight

Atlanta, Georgia three-piece All The Saints released their new album Intro to Fractions on 30January, following their critically-acclaimed LP of 2008, Fire on Corridor X. The trio consists of Titus Brown (Bassist), Matt Lambert (singer/guitarist) and Jim Crook (Drummer). The album is a relentless experiment in sound. Each texture, tone and melody is given its own strength through the meditative way in which the musicians gradually expand and alter even the most seemingly insignificant material. The band exhibits a 90s alternative rock influence, mimicking the distant, paranoid, harrowing voice of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, the looping, heavy feedback of Sonic Youth and the creativity and experimentation of Radiohead circa OK Computer.

Intro to Fractions features a heavily distorted guitar sound accompanied by strong, creative bass lines, and drumming that has to be applauded. Crook must be left gasping for air after the impressive rolls he consistently drops. The often heavily cymbal-orientated drumming is a driving force that keeps you interested and also makes you want to get up and jump about. Lambert’s haunting vocals become immersed in the cacophony of heavy instrumentals, yet this does not take from the music; rather, it removes the emphasis from vocal clarity, making it a collage of different sounds and instruments as opposed to a vocal-driven, instrument-subservient record. This adds to what All The Saints have created because, when the listener is not led by fore-fronted lyrics, it’s possible to become lost in the actual sounds being created, and therefore get a much broader sense of the different goings-on in the overall texture of the music.

This psychedelic, saturated, explosive sound definitely deserves a listen. The album will surely capture interest on the first listen but it is definitely a grower, like all good albums in my opinion. There is so much space to explore within the vast, sonar landscape All The Saints have created that one listen would only allow the listener access to a fraction (excuse the pun) of what is being exhibited on this expansive album.

Fiona Burke

Intro to Fractions is released on 30^th January 2012.

Watch the video for Half Red Half Way here: