aaamusic | On 09, Apr 2012

Glasgow confirms its characteristic as post-rock goldmine once again with a new band debuting. In the land of Mogwai this time is the turn of Quickbeam, a six piece that, instead of focusing on thick walls of sounds as Stuart Braithwhite’s band does, it sets itself free of frills and twiddly bits in the search of the perfect minimalist sound.
Quickbeam are likened to Sigur Ros, Low, and Bon Iver in the press release. After repeated and careful listening, I find these references reductive. The intensity of Seven Hundred Birds echoes the slo-core of Lorna (even clearer in b-side Empty Space) and the avant-garde of Anoice and Rachel’s, through the escapism of Matthew Robert Cooper, aka Eluvium, and Keith Kenniff in his Helios’ (re)incarnation rather than Goldmund’s.
The only (partial) limit of Seven Hundred Birds lies in a metaphorical flight that is never fulfilled and implemented, waiting for a crescendo that never comes or a bomb that never goes off. Probably it’s to blame here the reference to Jonsi & Co. rather than an actual limit to the round harmonies and the wide breathed atmosphere of this single.
We will be now waiting for the first album to confirm the very high expectations that this band is gathering around themselves and to finally acclaim a new star is born in the firmament of British (post)rock. Seven Hundred Birds is produced by Chris Gordon and it is released by Comets and Cartwheels on 9th April 2012.

★★★★★

Lorenzo Coretti