Since the last time Pitchfork reviewed one of their records, Red Sparowes have recorded an album with song titles inspired by China's Great Leap Forward and dedicated a live album to thieves who stole their instruments that read: "May death come to you on swift wings, may your spoils turn into serpents and coil around your necks, may the rest of your days be stricken with unending sickness, may your children's bodies belong to the fire, may every last one of you anguish in eternal pain, crying aloud for mercy, while we turn our heads away with a smile and a deaf ear." Suffice it to say that their pretensions aren't only musical-- and in this case, that's a good thing. It takes a certain conviction and character to make instrumental post-rock, and the group's got both with plenty to spare.
However, considering they feature guys who've played with screamo progenitors Angel Hair, synthcore enthusiasts the VSS, and Isis, one would hope that Red Sparowes weren't so typically post-rocky. After all, at this point, eight-minute, loud/soft tunes that pay homage to the apocryphal grandeur of Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor need to be pretty special to make hearts swell. The Fear, unfortunately, falls short of that mark-- no amount of conviction can elevate these tracks above sounding like superb mimicry.
If you hear one song from The Fear, you've heard them all-- a quiet, ominous opening gives way to a gradual build-up and, eventually, the bombastic climax. The album's opening track fittingly serves as a two-minute teaser of what the LP's lengthier tracks accomplish, as well as a example of what those tracks might have been better off avoiding. "Truths Arise" starts with a solitary guitar offering its lament one reverbed note at a time; but after the first minute, the group brings in the drums and the bass and the loudness to send off the song in an entirely unnecessary flourish of fanfare. It's a twist that listeners can see coming from miles away-- it pushes the same button that's always pushed in these situations.
Without fail, The Fear rides that button down to a nub, going so far as to circle back on longer tracks to give the button another unnecessary push. There are some nice touches to be found here-- some tracks foreground what sounds like a little Allman-esque slide guitar, and the softer and slipperier sections of "A Mutiny" (aka the parts that don't sound like interstitial music from 28 Days Later) is refreshingly reminiscent of early Tortoise. These brief moments of clarity and contemplation, however, are capably subsumed by the group's unwavering need to kick out the jams, "Like Herod" style. They do well enough with those sections, but those fleeting moments on The Fear when Red Sparowes avoid that impulse makes those all-too-frequent moments of big-bang-boom all the more disappointing.
