Cloudkicker | Beacons

--

1. We are going to invert...
2. Here, wait a minute! Damn it!
3. We're goin' in. We're going down.
4. Oh, god.
5. I admit it now. I was scared.
6. We were all scared.
7. Push it way up!
8. ...it's just wide-open field.
9. It's bad. We're hit, man, we are hit.
10. Amy, I love you.

--

After releasing a debut LP and three solid EPs soon after, Ben Sharp finally gave us another full length, Beacons. The hype around this one was much larger due to the fact that he didn't actually just...give this one to us, instead posting little teasers every week. Each release thus far has been a free download on his site, something that I greatly encourage and appreciate, and so do fans. Intelligently, I believe he built up his fans appreciation enough for him to offer this record to fans in a stream, yet they can pay whatever quantity of currency they wish for a higher quality digital release, and he will then ship out physical compact discs of Beacons to those who dished out money. Very cool.

You may be looking at the track listing for this record and think...'What a bunch of stupid titles.' Actually, all the titles are rather eerie and interesting. Each are final or nearly final last words from pilots about to eat shit. What's great about the titles are that each song really resembles the final words. Such as the "We're goin' in. We're going down.", which is a very winding and frantic song that easily gives off panic-y imagery of you being in a plane twisting down through the sky.

The album runs together pretty smoothly although certain sections of the CD are smoother than others. The stand out moment of the record are the two ambient tracks "I admit it now. I was scared.", "We were all scared" which beautifully run into each other and then into the best song on the record "Push it way up", a groovy monstrous track with oozing layers of ambient reverb soaked guitars gushing all over the product. The guitars sound like 3 separate sirens roaring loudly over the music that literally put you in a frozen trance. It's as if something terrible is happening yet you can't move because of how beautiful it sounds. It's a great moment on the record.

In all, this is by far the most cohesive and solid effort from Cloudkicker. As much as I enjoyed his previous releases, this one will easily get more spins from me. Definitely check this out if you haven't already. He is streaming the album right on his website for free.