A band without a vocalist does not an instrumental band make, and though the lush thrill of the arpeggio guitars, the bee-like drone of the bass and the thumping apocalypse of the drums on album opener ‘It Must Be Called Intelligence If People Stop When They Realize They Are Not To Become What They Are Wishing To Be’ teases and cajoles with its warm, fuzzy logic, Té are not the next Sigur Ros on the evidence of this release alone. Even if they were formed in Japan – the hotseat of all things amazing.
Having shared stages with the likes of Arab Strap, Coptic Light and Saxon Shore suggests they may indeed have a market for their deeply emotional craft, but beyond the calculated atmospherics, the sub-jazz digressions, the sparkling star guitars and their heaving progressive hearts there’s not nearly enough breadth to sustain interest for 45 minutes; the paradiddling digressions themselves being far more arresting than they the actual journeys they stray from. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some pretty stirring stuff – much like we’d have from Mars Volta if they ever copped hold of a bunch of Coldplay records – but what the rich, fluid tones gain in consistency, they lose in relief. It’s a room bathed in twilight, a mountain built on a molehill, a screen with a blurry picture. With a little more contrast and a few more digressions this could have been quite impressive.
The oblique, postmodernist cover-art and clever, clever song titles almost did it for me. But not quite.