For the superstitious among us, it is the worst kind of luck to listen to a band you plan to see within 24 hours of their show. Van accidents, band dissolutions, and broken friendships, among other horrors, have supposedly resulted from the transgression. Yet a few weeks ago, on the verge of heading out to watch Growing live, I found myself hitting play on His Return, only hours before they were scheduled to perform. Halfway out the door, I still couldn't figure out what I was leaving to see.
A former power trio folded now into a patient duo, Growing practice a kind of mystifying self-effacement. Stacks of amplifiers and big guitar chords hide behind an extreme polish; songs play in a droning shine, with upbeat major chords wrapped around the normally pessimistic avant-garde of feedback meditation. In their original configuration, Growing more often tipped their hand: "Cutting, Opening, Swimming", from 2003's The Sky's Run Into the Sea, menaced with drawn-out threats and high volume. Though 2004 saw them already oblique, "Anaheim II" (from that year's The Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of Light) still puts teeth on edge. His Return, their third and latest full length (not counting an ocean of tapes and archives floating around), never gets that direct, opting instead for a mostly impermeable and effects-laden wall that masks the band's intentions and displaces the amplifiers' murderous impulse.
The effect is of being held at arm's length. "In the Shadow of the Mountain" is a tease, a trembling line of fluted guitar and static drone, checking bagpipes at both ends of the spectrum; though it meanders, it never quite arrives. The sound is at once soothing and superficial. "Freedom Towards Death" is not so removed but it too dances around the point. Growing bring out a rare vocal and do it full-up, overdubs and everything: each phrase proceeds apace, and although it's catchy, there's more than a hint of metronome to the pace. The steady evenness reads as programmatic or mechanical as it does generous.
The palette over these long songs is pretty sparse, and the best part of His Return is when they embrace their own set limits and use the time to shove just one sound into one space. "Wide Open", the most fully realized track, is actually its nominal opposite, mercifully foregoing the gradual changes and shiny shallow reflection. Growing pour on one grinding chord, one melody, and with the two build a huge and thrilling edifice. But the overall schematics of the thing are defeating, and one doesn't need to love guitars or dissonance to wish they would stroke harder or not all.
