One thing is particularly striking upon first listening to ‘Opal’: this is a record born out of an immense degree of creative confidence. Jake Murray, the main man behind in violet, clearly has something to prove and his band adeptly treads the line between rousing alternative rock and atmospheric shoegaze.
The opening salvo of The Conch and We’re All Dying, Says Sylvia give ‘Opal’ a propulsive start that belies the hazy, droning textures that dominate proceedings. There are clear influences from the fuzzy world of early ‘90s guitar music, but there’s also a muscularity evident that demonstrates Murray’s passion for Nine Inch Nails.
Fortunately, things never get too overwrought. Melodrama is not on the menu here, largely because Murray’s vocals, even when conjuring some pretty bleak imagery on The Hole Parts 1 & 2, are light enough to recall the disembodied soar of Kevin Shields. The balance between the emotions on display and the demands of in violet’s musical direction is expertly judged.
The mammoth, 10-minute plus, Polite is the defining moment of ‘Opal’. Managing to just about avoid any of the clichés of post-rock with its quiet/loud variations, this is in violet and their most openly bold and expansive.
Subtle whispers of electronica help cultivate a soundscape malleable enough to accomodate some of the album’s most searingly melodic and intriguingly dissonant moments. It’s so epic that it cannot help but make the following track, Fin, seem slightly inferior as an album closer, but such a complaint is merely a minor niggle.
What perhaps separates in violet from so much of the field is that, despite the fact that the majority of ‘Opal’ is fairly similar in tone, each of the songs maintain their own identity. The flow of the album is only briefly impeded by the jarringly short 13 Birds, but whenever ‘Opal’ feels like it might slip into mundanity the strength of the songwriting pulls it through. This is one mightily impressive debut.
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