This article was first published on Louder Than War on 19 March 2013.
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Our New Band of the Day is One Thousand Suns; an experimental instrumental rock three-piece from the Midlands.
There seems to be an increasing number of instrumental bands around at the moment. They may not be hitting the mainstream, or even occurring in significant number to be considered a sub-genre yet, but they’re there.
Mostly they’re ploughing an experimental heavy rock furrow and those we’re hearing are doing it pretty well.
Amongst them are One Thousand Suns, a three-piece from the Midlands. Their album Phenomenology is a superb example of how complex and intricate full on noise can be (also hear Tor, a new band of the day I wrote about recently for an example of this).
But for a trio there are plenty of little surprises throughout the six tracks. Strings keen in a sad tone around The Perseids adding another dimension in which to indulge as the heavy kicks in.
Tracks generally go with a slow burn start but when they catch they are raging infernos of crackling rhythms surrounded by the flicker and thunder of guitar licks. Heavy music like this is all too often cast aside as thoughtless noise for the sake of noise but it’s to the detriment of those that do; One Thousand Suns demonstrate perfectly the highly melodic structure of the heaviest grooves.
And there is some impressive mastery of the instruments involved on display here too. The drum breakdown behind swirls of guitar show you don’t need synths to do psychedelic sounds. And just as you’re settling in to that it changed again with an industrialist churn taking over.
There’s a lot going on in this six-track album but it doesn’t feel as if it’s been crammed in. There’s progression and interest and, yes, noise but it’s a glorious melodic hardcore sort well worth your time.
You can find One Thousand Suns on Facebook, Twitter or Soundcloud and YouTube. Their album Phenomenology is available from iTunes.
All words by Sarah Lay.