OH HIROSHIMA – MYRIAD
....have created a sound that is wholly their own and it is IMMENSE.
Sweden’s Oh Hiroshima are self-described post-rockers. Although they are a new name to me, this is their fourth album and I need to check out the back catalogue.
As the song titles indicate - Veil of Certainty, All Things Pass, Ascension, Humane and Hidden Chamber – this is SERIOUS music. It is melancholic, at times to the point of darkness, and yet there is also joy to be found here. The brass in opener Nour and Humane is uplifting. The elegiac Veil of Certainty makes me want to sway and throw my arms in the air and gothdance like nobody is watching. With no pun intended, Ascension climbs to a rapturous peak, as does the epic Tundra. The strings on Hidden Chamber are simply gorgeous.
Filmic and widescreen in scope and ambition, this album hits an almost perfect sweet spot between post-rock royalty and the very best shoegaze – think Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky or Sigur Ros for the former and MBV, Ride or Slowdive for the latter. Jakob Hemström and Oskar Nilsson can, without a doubt, hold their own with any of those acts and, by adding occasional dashes of doom and goth, have created a sound that is wholly their own and it is IMMENSE.
9/10
