Engine Down
To Bury Within the Sound
Lovitt
Sometimes a band will get so wrapped up in the miniscule technicalities of composition that they forget one of the most powerful elements of songwriting: tension. Tension is what makes To Bury Within the Sound such an interesting record. Engine Down can wrap you in rocked-out sheets of it, like on “Trial Error,” or they can use the tension of a slack rope on the lifeboat of a burning boat to rock you gently to rest. Their prior record, Under the Pretense of Present Tense, stayed comfortably within the intense rock idiom, but Engine Down prove their worth as musicians by not staying stagnant and branching out with additional instrumentation, like piano, vibes and cello. This doesn’t mean that the band is on the money with every track, it’s just nice to see a band un-self-consciously open into other fields and let the newer sounds affect their songwriting style. Now their music is almost as cerebral as it is visceral, and I give credit to them and their willingness to explore and expand their style.
Lovitt Records, P.O. Box 248, Arlington, VA 22210-9998; http://www.lovitt.com
