Not to be confused with the guitarded punks on Honest Don's that Pitchfork's own Charly Gordon called "mildly entertaining," this band called Limp is four men from Denmark who spend most of their time apart, each making electronic music on their own. Jakob Skatt (Syntaks), Jonas Munk (Manual), Rasmus Rasmussen (Aerosol) and Jess Kahr (just Jess, thank you) spend the bulk of their musical lives in front of a computer, looking for the perfect beat with one hand on a mouse and the other fingering some power user quick-key combo. They come to Limp when they want to rock out a bit and make some energetic guitar-based music.
Not surprisingly, Limp approach the band angle from the perspective of players weaned on electronic music, which is to say, the six-cut, 30-minute EP Orion is immediately recognizable as post-rock. But we're not talking about tense, Slint-derived, Chicago-style post-rock. Rather, Orion utilizes a prettier and more refined European approach, without a hint of any jazz background. Limp paints with an impressionist's brush that puts them close to late-period Mogwai, crafting pieces filled with gauzy drones, processed fuzz-guitar bleeds, and ringing arpeggios that add subtle drama to the climaxes of each song.
Limp's basic setup is guitar, bass, and drums, with added synths, sampling and studio manipulation. Though the studio tinkering never dominates, the subtle electronic touches are the elements that stand out most on Orion. There is a distinct 80s cast to the synth treatments that recalls the work Eno and Lanois did with U2. The title track is by far the most dynamic piece here, building slowly from a hushed, careful intro into a pounding rock tune. Subtle, but necessary, swaths of electronic texture weave in and around the chiming, delayed guitars, giving the band something to push against. Tracing back even further along the same path, the opening to the positively Frippertronic "City Speaks Tonight" is a dead ringer for Eno's "In Dark Trees" from Another Green World, the album that provided the template for all his later pop productions.
Yet, despite the impressive resumes of its members, the band's cohesion as a unit (some of these guys have been playing together since they were 11), and the good taste of its influences, Limp just doesn't do enough to stand out in this genre. The pieces are pretty and sound nice, but fail to create a lasting impression (a problem I have with Mogwai, actually). Fans of lush instrumental guitar rock will probably love Orion; as for me, this is the kind of record I only pull out once in a great while.
