aaamusic | On 31, Aug 2011

Like any good American Indie Rocker, Aaron Bruno, formerly of Under the Influence of Giants “fame” has a side project. Like any good American Indie Rocker, his side project is mainly electronic and sounds nothing like his day job. Unlike most American Indie Rockers, this is a hell of a lot more than a vanity project. Sail is a swaggering, masterful piece of eclectic, grown up synth-pop, all filthy synth bass, live drum samples, ridiculously catchy keyboard hooks and a vast array of tricks that mark it out as something tangibly new, like a string section, an acoustic piano led breakdown and Bruno’s howling, almost pained vocals. All this marks Sail as something very, very rare, an electronic pop song that is also extremely human, relatable and affecting. Make no mistake, this is a fantastic record, and if the parent album, AWOLNATION’s sophomore effort  Megalithic Symphony, can follow this up, then we are in for something very special indeed.

 

Author: Will Howard