It wouldn’t be unreasonable to characterize Tuesday’s sold-out show at The Sinclair as a demonstration of the state of post-rock in 2013. The term, viagra which came into vogue in the late 90s to describe the slow build, view long-form, nurse largely instrumental music that bands like Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Ros were popularizing at the time, has surely been applied to each of the three bands on the bill. In a fitting reflection of post-rock’s forever nebulous and debated definition, however, hometown heroes Caspian, heavy instrumentalists 65daysofstatic and emo revivalists The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die each brought something entirely different to the table.
The World is a Beautiful Place… opened the night with seven members on stage (that’s one for every two words in their name, if you were wondering). Their sound was appropriately huge, putting three guitarists, a bassist, a drummer and a keyboardist to good use at climactic moments. The songs did tend to suffer from an excess of stop-and-go changes in dynamics though, which stilted momentum more often than creating it. A sense of tension and emotional release is a large part of what earns the band both its post-rock subgenre tagging and its widespread internet acclaim, but it simply wasn’t executed as well as it could’ve been in a live setting. The moments where everything did come together as it should have, though – see the climax of set-closer “Getting Sodas” – mostly made up for awkwardness elsewhere. The lasting impression was one of a good band with the potential to be a great one with some time to mature.
65daysofstatic, hailing all the way from England, broke into the second set of the night on an unsteady note. An overpowering looped drum track thundered through the speakers while the guitars and live drums on stage seemed largely inaudible. It briefly felt like a prog-rock/EDM hybrid gone horribly awry. As the sound was adjusted and the band settled into a groove, however, things improved considerably. 65daysofstatic are more on the nose and to the point than your typical post-rock act; they’re loud, they’re fast and they waste little time with each driving instrumental. Sharp bass lines wound around shredded guitars, precision drumming and the continued – but thankfully more subdued – presence of electronic samples and loops. The band was undeniably tight, and quickly found its footing after a shaky start to deliver a solid, confident set.
Though this tour is technically a co-bill for 65daysofstatic and Massachusetts’ own Caspian, it was the latter that clearly owned the stage on this particular evening. The Beverly-based crew was the most straightforwardly post-rocking band of the night, with their sound characterized by the traditional tranquil lows and triumphant highs. Caspian aren’t reinventing the wheel when it comes to majestic instrumentals, but they execute them exceptionally well.
They emerged onto an almost completely dark stage with the accompaniment of an ominous recorded monologue, setting the mood before launching into an enthralling hour-plus set. Each of Caspian’s five members threw themselves wholeheartedly into their performance. Even the first song of the set saw guitars held aloft to the sky and strings struck with emotive force, and everyone on stage appeared drenched in sweat by the 10 or 15 minute mark. Perhaps it was the homecoming nature of the show that lent a greater sense of gravitas to the songs, but the set truly felt like something special. The packed-in crowd hung on every note, and the band simply sounded flawless. It was heavy and it was beautiful, often simultaneously. “Let’s play the roof off this place,” guitarist Philip Jamieson said at the start of the band’s encore. For the final two songs, just as they had for the previous hour, Caspian did precisely that.
