Album Review

65daysofstatic – The Fall Of Math

• 25th Mar 2014

10 years have passed, and The Fall Of Math is now a go-to album for anyone exploring the world and history of post rock. Taking their name inspiration prior to the band’s incarnation, when creating a soundtrack for a John Carpenter film ‘Stealth Bomber’ (a film based around a time a period of time of global communication breakdown, named ’65 days of static’), the band decided to generate more musical fusions together. This took its form on this seminal debut album, and it went on to inspire a vast amount of musicians – and also showed that the synthesis of maths, science and music is possible.

The tinkering chimes during the opening chimes of Retreat! Retreat! are sounds that anyone who owns a copy of this album, or has heard it before, will know instantly, as it so delicately lures you into a heroic crescendo of drum mastery. This is a band that took the essence of elusive mystery, so beautifully created by the likes of Sigur Ros and Olafur Arnalds, and somehow added to that equation ferociously calculated drum skitters and distorted melodies making such a huge, outlandish and unique noise, and are therefore absolutely to be celebrated 10 years on.

This Cat Is A Landmine evokes a navy blue, pissed-off mood, yet still manages to take you soaring above the dismal, grey rainclouds – be it only for 20 seconds – before they pummel you back into the havoc and confusion of their own personally created white noise. 65DOS evoke so many passions during this reverberated journey through dark and light, it’s hard to know where each track is going to take you, or where you will end up. It’s not an album that you reach for to lift your spirits, that’s for sure, but what it does do is heighten your senses, so what you are already feeling becomes more real, more sensitive. The time signatures that 65DOS use are ‘user friendly’ – they are altered and unusual, but not so hard to follow that a novice listener couldn’t understand and follow the flow through this electrical storm cloud.

The Fall Of Math is a sensational debut album, and not only a highlight in post-rock history, it also represents a significant landmark in our human history. This album was fueled by political angst in a scared world, just post 9/11, where global tensions were high, and the world was running on adrenaline and fear. These strains and stresses can be heard and felt throughout the course of this record, and in fact strikes an even deeper chord 10 years on, as these anxieties and fears are still ever present in the world we live in now.

If you have never listened to this record, play it really loudly whilst watching the news on ‘mute’. This is the sound of catastrophe.

– Lottie Hunt

Order here.

Venue: The Fall Of Math
Support Band: Monotreme Records