Of Tomorrow

Album review

As the years went on and their discography grew, amorphous English noise rock assemblage the Telescopes fell more and more into the class of bands who were "always the same, always different." The group's perpetually shifting lineup and approach (haphazardly conducted by sole constant Stephen Lawrie) radically shifts forms from one album to the next without losing its core of dark intensity and moody, spaced-out jams. Fifteenth album Of Tomorrow wanders away slightly from the band's signature murk and throbbing wall of sound, bringing vocals and fluttering electronic textures a bit more to the forefront but keeping a tight grip on their eerie, sprawling space rock sensibilities. Tracks like "Butterfly" and "Where Do We Begin?" are driven by rigid drum machine patterns and hypnotic bass lines, with Lawrie's shadowy vocals oozing slowly over the songs. Flashes of unidentifiable electronics and off-time delays flit around the stereo field, sometimes confusing the steady rhythms and sometimes unintentionally locking in with them. The album expands on the strung-out sound the band have been refining since their late-'80s beginnings, combining the druggy drones of Spacemen 3 or Loop with a newfound attention to details. The songs the band were making even a few years earlier felt like getting hit with a bag of bricks. On Of Tomorrow, the Telescopes take the bricks out of the bag one by one, inspecting each one thoroughly before smashing their listeners with them sonically. The layers of sound are clearer, and gentle moments like the soft and nostalgic "Only Lovers Know" transmute Roy Orbison-era oldies songwriting into a weird robotic landscape where lifeless drum machines and digital reverb dance coldly around human feelings. Live drums help push along the Jesus and Mary Chain-esqe swagger of "(The Other Side)" and drawn-out closing track "Down by the Sea" is a perfect comedown for a record that's often as sweet as it is disorienting. While Of Tomorrow might not seem too wildly removed from the rest of the band's body of work on first listen, the space it carves out for subtle details and bleary emotional expressions makes it an album that requires closer inspection to grasp its full scope.

© Fred Thomas /TiVo