Vanishing
Still Lifes Are Failing
GSL
Vanishing seem tailor-made for those fashion whore darkwave scenesters infesting corners of every internet community in existance these days. The band’s music, a hybrid of almost electro/almost goth/almost indie/almost punk isn’t what I’d call masterful, but it’s light years better than many of their peers. At their best, as on “1.10” and “Toothless Tigers,” the band sounds like the redux version of a John Carpenter sci-fi film score: minimal, ominous electronics cascading out of a dusty casio, with occasional break beat percussion thrown in as crowd pleasers. Also refreshing is the inclusion of the skronky free-jazz sax and the near post-rockian shifts in song dynamics on “8.18.”
Unfortunately, as happens far too much in this genre, the album’s length stretches beyond its creativity, leaving the final third of the disc to trot out the same beats with slightly different sound treatments. Fans of The Rapture and that ilk would do well to get a hold of Still Lifes Are Failing, if for no other reason than to cleanse their palette of the DFA before hunting down GSL’s stellar dance-punk The Chromatics.
Vanishing: http://www.thevanishing.com
