Where I Am a Rocketship fits into the musical landscape is not the issue, I doubt that you could get two people to agree on that anyway, all that matters is that they exist. And if their music is the epitome of genre-hopping…or better still genre-swerving…sonic creativity then they are beating a path that others should follow. A path found only by ripping up the rule book, putting away the sonic map and throwing caution to the wind.
Not that they exist for any other reason than to make their own particular brand of music but history might one day prove that they were an important beacon of creativity and adventure in a time of conformity and nostalgia, tribute bands and zeitgeist surfers.
But if Lies and Legends is just an album, it’s a bloody great one, full of familiar sounds perhaps but sounds that both clash and complement, ebb and flow, to create unexpected and wholly original songs.
The floating haze and power chords of Fever Dream kicks things off, a blend of soft and soothing sounds surrounding itself with sonic weight and having done so it proceeds to wander between ambience and aggression. Set The Controls To Forever is a strange, dark and psychedelic groover, one built on odd beats and excessive space, allowing atmospheres to rift and percolate in these wide-open sonic spaces.
What’s This For pushes alt-rock into some new territories (alt-alt-rock anyone?) and Ignorance runs on a skittering, percussive beat and an almost pop vibe…if pop had been taken apart and put back together in odd and refreshing ways. (Anagrammatical Pop?)
Writing a review of this album is hard. Not because it is difficult to find things to say about the music but because it is so unique and challenging a set of songs that even the most carefully chosen words seem to hardly do the music justice or begin to convey to the prospective listener what is going on. As a wise man once said, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. You’ll just have to buy the album, I guess.
