Long Distance Calling - Avoid The Light

Every so often, a completely random album by a band I've never heard of will somehow pop up on my radar and completely blow me away. Thanks to Soundweave, last year's such discovery was Vaalbara, a crushing work of early-Isis-style semi-instrumental post metal by the Ann Arbor outfit Supercontinent (who, sadly, has since disbanded). My latest unexpected surprise, also found through Soundweave, is Germany's Long Distance Calling, with their latest release Avoid The Light.

Tracklist:

01. Apparitions (12:17)
02. Black Paper Planes (7:17)
03. 359° (7:55)
04. I Know You, Stanley Milgram! (10:26)
05. The Nearing Grave (7:48)
06. Sundown Highway (9:11)

Upon my first liston, Long Distance Calling initially struck me as another run-of-the-mill instrumental atmospheric post-rock band (albeit a pretty good one), especially through most of the first track. But just as I was about to chalk them up as yet another Explosions In The Sky imitation, they did something that EITS has yet to ever do: they got heavy. Not just "lots of different sounds going on at once" kind of heavy, I mean they got down and dirty and rocked the opener out. My curiosity was piqued, and I decided I would give the rest of the album at least one shot, and see what else I may find. I didn't have to wait long. After a short ambient intro,"Black Paper Planes" came in with a thick and juicy riff, and I was sold.

To coarsely summarize, I would say the album sounds rather like a mixture of Explosions In The Sky and Russian Circles, with perhaps just a dash of recent Isis thrown in for flavor. There are extended lighter passages of melodic guitar work and subtle electronic textures, often punctuated nicely by quick drum bursts. But they are not afraid to turn the songs to metal territory, delving fluidly into passages of full-on riffage and double kick drum roll glory. The tracks all tend to meander a bit, changing rhythm and pace several times, yet still retaining a nice sense of cohesion. As a result, they tend to be on the longer side, all over 7 minutes and two of the six venturing into the 10-12 minute range.

As for particular highlights, I would say that "Black Paper Planes", "I Know You, Stanley Milgram!", and "Sundown Highway" are my favorite tracks. As is my nature, those also happen to be the three heaviest songs; and the devastatingly slick riff that highlights the first half of "Stanley Milgram" is my favorite moment of the entire album. "Apparitions" is a solid song, and a good intro to the album, sliding in gently with some nice light-ish guitar melody before introducing some grit. "The Nearing Grave", which actually features vocals (by Jonas Renkse from Katatonia, so I've read), was originally my least favorite track, mainly because it seemed to interrupt the nice progressive insrumental flow with something a bit more formulaic. However, the more I've heard it, it has actually grown on me quite a bit, and I find it to be very well executed for what it is.

Overall, I definitely highly recommend this album, especially for those already into the recent proliferation of instrumental progressive and post rock/metal bands. Though the genre is getting a bit flooded with sound-alikes, Long Distance Calling, in my opinion, definitely separates themselves from the pack with Avoid The Light. They show some solid song-writing and some serious chops. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here.