When this promo showed up in our inbox, i commented "Hey, a band from Turkey! How many countries do we need in order to have reviewed one band from every country in Europe?" I think our Euro Bingo Card is almost complete.
On Your Horizon are a post-rock quartet that features prominent cello. Ah, harkening back to the Golden Age of Cello Rock. Nice... I always liked the deep, natural droning sound of that instrument as an accompaniment to guitar noodling. And i think that On Your Horizon do well with it.
The record starts off with S.T.M.F. in which a guitar jangles nicely alongside some kind of keyboard drone.
The guitar picks a few lonely lingering notes in Untitled #1, the guitar stretched out and sparse while electronics stutter and click. This is Yellow6 playing along with an Autechre track. Then, a horn wanders in, and cello, and the whole thing gets kind of fast and Godspeed-y. This is a pretty cool tune.
In, Empty starts with a sample of someone singing in an old movie. As the sample fades out, On Your Horizon step in with nice, slower-paced post-rock and the guitar noodles under ponderous percussion while the cello saws away. This is kind of a by-the-numbers post-rock tune, but in the middle it gets dense with overdriven guitar and suddenly the cello steps out front. That's a very lovely moment.
Bir Rüya 01:27 is a short interlude of high-pitched guitar feedback, sure to alienate moist listeners. And then finally we wrap things up with ...Thee In The Deluge of Noah. This tune starts really slowly, the drum beat echoing while instruments noodle quietly. It never really builds up too much steam, just kind of meandering along ambiently, and fading out to end the record.
On Your Horizon are not reinventing anything. There are no odd / different Turkish melodies or rhythms here. Is Turkish music even that different from the music of the rest of Europe? I don't know. It is a shame that this band is so, well, normal.
But they are a competent post-rock band. Fans of the genre will be interested, but if post-rock is not your thing, then On Your Horizon really have nothing to offer you.
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