aaamusic | On 17, Oct 2011

The Resonance Association are an experimental, instrumental duo consisting of Daniel Vincent and Dominic Hemy. Despite only forming in 2006, ‘Heliopause’ is their fourth album, and they’ve also released nearly a dozen EPs.

This album was preceded by the well-received ‘Heliopause Prelude’ EP, which featured (arguably) even darker music than their back-catalogue, and ‘Heliopause’ builds on this direction. The opening couplet of ‘Heliopause Part One’ and ‘Heliopause Part Two’ are among the best tracks on the album – ‘Part One’ acts more like an intro to ‘Part Two,’ with a solemn organ sound and some soothing ‘Aaah’ vocals, while ‘Part Two’ has a more hard rock sound with a solid drumbeat and enticing guitar riff.

However, most of the rest of this The Resonance Association album is rather disappointing. Tracks like ‘Midnight Square’ and ‘Penultimate Dream Sequence’ are overly long and don’t really amount to anything  – the soundscapes are ambitious but regrettably barren. ‘Passive Waves’ and ‘Single Point of Failure’ are better, but still not on par with the opening couplet, with the latter sounding a tad repetitive – the whispered vocals are a great touch though. ‘Methods of Control’ features some fabulous, angsty acoustic guitar, but it bookends some irritating white distortion – it doesn’t sound progressive, it just sound irritating.

It is not until the end of the album that a real quality reemerges from The Resonance Association. ‘Departing’ is the true highlight, containing thrilling (but lyric-less) howling vocals and some rocking electric guitars in the latter half. Then the record ends with ‘Heliopause Part Three,’ which has a sinister but enthralling bassline – a distorted, heavy bassline. Songs like these last two, as well as ‘Memory Fade To Silver,’ have a Trentemøller, ‘Into The Great Wide Yonder’ vibe, with dark, industrial meets hard rock sound. The reason these tracks are the better, more memorable offerings is because they have actual song structures, and the slight heavy metal element that accompanies them allows some real energy to emerge. Sadly, the rest of the album is made up of underdeveloped ideas. Each track is essentially one decent sound effect – whether ambient or aggressive – that doesn’t end up sounding like a fully formed composition. Many of the looped samples, guitar parts, or sonic sound effects from each song would’ve worked better if they had been fused together to create fewer, more interesting songs.

That being said, when The Resonance Association are on form, they are proper stimulating – and one can just tell that this material (in fact, all their material) would sound electric in the live environment.

 

Clive Rozario