Almost two years ago I went to see Motivesounds label-mates Capulet play with Mt. and a band I had heard little about, upcdowncleftcrightcabc+start. I attended the show with the expectation to be thoroughly entertained by the Motivesounds roster, but I was completely surprised by the third band who actually ended up impressing me the most. Quickly I attained a copy of And the Battle is Won, and frequently relived the magic of that incendiary live experience.

Forward ahead two years and roughly 12,000 listens of And the Battle is Won, and we are eagerly awaiting the follow up from Kent’s  mighty upcdowncleftcrightcabc+start (hereafter referred to as upcdownc). Sometimes a band can create a fantastic debut album and struggle to follow it with something that is even close in quality to the original. What makes this common situation even more difficult to overcome is when fans stir up the hype, attract more fans, and then those fans stir up even more hype...until somewhere along the way the band finally announces a new album, only to then have it eventually delayed a year in a strategy which seems to accomplish little more than to frustrate the heck out of loyal fans!

So, three years after And The Battle Is Won, expectations are high - but do they live up to the rather relentless hype? In short, the answer is yes. What upcdownc have done here is to take their trademark sound, a kind of stripped-down melodic heaviness, and to embellish it with all kinds of elaborate flourishes, without losing the immense appeal of the debut. Some of the beautiful timelessness evident in "New Year" and "Sadako’s Fury" from the debut is replicated in this instance, but amplified tenfold. "Get To The Chopper," for instance, begins the album proper, after a short introductory song. Drawing the listener in with beautifully panned delicate guitar notes over a droning bass part, the piece slowly crescendos into the crushing assault that immediately reminds you why we waited almost three years to hear this record.

Another fine example of this depth of feeling is found in the grandiose "Murmurs Pt. 2." Segueing slowly into a beautiful acoustic guitar and layered with uninhibited violins and almost celestial chimes, it feels as though the piece could stay just the same way for over a week and not lose any of the charm it exhibits in these first few seconds. Before long, the oft-used but (surprisingly) never boring crescendo becomes apparent. Layering guitars over each other and slowly increasing the volume of the other parts sounds rather obvious, doesn’t it? It is, but in this case, it is done with such panache that it makes you wonder why everyone doesn’t take their time in doing these things.

One thing that I constantly allude to in many of my reviews is that a sense of continuity is absolutely vital to an album having that mass appeal, and because Embers shifts so much between opposite ends of the dynamic spectrum, it is a credit to them that they manage to maintain even a shred of cohesion throughout the album. Forget the shred, the shred is long gone, what we have here is a fully realized linear narrative, made even more impressive by the time it takes for this to become wholly apparent. As the album continues, the delicate intervals become fewer and the heavy sections become more pronounced, giving the feeling of a journey. The cadences become darker, and the guitars more scathing with each passing track, truly pummeling the listener with the light/dark contrast, and adding even more to the unimaginable depth of feeling portrayed with each movement.

As I mentioned before, making a follow-up so long after the original album is always going to be a hard feat to accomplish, but with Embers, upcdownc manage without a shadow of a doubt. This is an album steeped in inexplicably beautiful consonance, juxtaposed with crushing heaviness, and at no point does any of it feel labored. What could have so easily been a disappointing elegy has triumphed in a way that will have their fans (old and new) willing to wait as long as it takes for a follow-up.

-Barry Smethurst