Magwheels – Evebuildingbomb

This is the first full-lenght album of Magwheels, a project of the American musician David Sullivan. earlier I reviewed his cdr “Lanterns”, which came out on the French Mechanoise Labs label. This release quite impressed me, with original instrumental music, experimental ambient music with a lot of emotion and filmic qualities. On the new album “Evebuildingbomb”, released on Ad Noiseam, he continues in this direction. It are mostly impressive landscapes you have to think of when listening to the music. At times the sound is heavy and oppressive, at other moments the music is empty and desolate. I would not call the overall mood dark, but rather bleak, and nevertheless moving and somewhat dramatic.

Deep dark drones are combined with layers of stretched out guitar waves, sometimes getting a little noisy. Magwheels certainly does not follow obvious paths, I find it hard to compare it with other acts or to file it under a distinct genre. The label has described it as ‘alternative/post-rock’, well, that’s a broad term of course. The nature of the album is such that it’s hard to pick out individual tracks, all songs flow organically into another. Perhaps this makes the album last a bit too long, 60 minutes without too much variation it is hard to stay focused. The most epic song is the last one, ‘The pace is threatening to kill me’, filling 12 minutes with a lot of tension.

artist: Magwheels
label: Ad Noiseam
details: 59 minutes. date of release: October 4, 2002