Lighttown Closure

Fourteen Twentysix

Mine All Mine Records, 2010

http://www.fourteentwentysix.com

REVIEW BY: Vish Iyer

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 01/04/2013

On this first full-length record by Fourteen Twentysix, the band seems much more confident and elegant than it did on its debut EP Songs To Forget. While the debut EP was more of an album of great ideas and not always equally great songs, Lighttown Closure is a rock-solid effort. Not only are the ideas better developed on this album, but there are so many more of them. Previously the band was on a quest for creating interesting song structures, but with this one, it actually nails it; especially the arsenal of musical instruments and sounds, which in comparison, is diverse and bountiful. my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

With only nine songs and a length of almost 54 minutes, Lighttown Closure is anything but an album of quick and easily tempting songs. The arrangements of each of these complex songs are simply superb, as the band still tries to maintain a sense of melodiousness and grandness without compromising on the somewhat difficult song framework. This is perfectly demonstrated on the eight-minute “Signals In The Sky,” one of the longer cuts on the album, where the short intro music piece promises a grand song with a bang, but then fizzles out to reveal a rather slow, tame, and tense number, which then finally holds up to the expectation at almost the halfway point, when the brilliant tribal beats kick in and the track is lifted into a blissful buoyant space.

On the other hand, with the relatively short tracks like “After The Storm,” “Closing Hours,” and “Gone Today” (all of which clock under six minutes), there is no such buildup of tension, as these cuts go straight to the meat, displaying some of the best – and a rather straightforward – amalgamation of great rock and electronic music with some fantastic percussive accompaniments, which is very evocative of Depeche Mode’s work during its Songs Of Faith And Devotion and Ultra days. The same goes with the album’s longest track, the over nine-minute-long “Lashes,” with its sweeping and affecting chorus that will leave the listener yearning for more of this album. On Lighttown Closure, Fourteen Twentysix ripens into a mature prog-rock outfit.

Rating: A

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