Sometimes clouds provide a sense of calm and ease, other times they portend impending thunderstorms.
With The new E.P. by Their Planes Will Block Out The Sun, it’s hard to tell which direction the weather is going. While the band’s name sounds ominous enough, the music frequently brings you to the edge of the storm before backing off instead, and providing some relief in its whirling guitars and washed out vocals.
Like Radiohead, the band is at their finest with equal parts paranoia and bliss. Opener ‘their planes’ lies at the brink of splitting in two before coming back to earth near the end of its epic turns. ‘Brasil’ keeps the ground shifting under you before a maddening march of pounding drums explodes all over the track’s calamitous end, while closing track "Cut and Run" (streaming below) slowly builds and develops on an intricate web of guitars, vocals and gently drum hits.
The E.P. is full of these surprises, and rewards with a constant upwards lift toward the heavens. No need to be nervous after all. Sometimes it sounds good to be a little paranoid. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)