CIVIL SERVICE-/// LIGHT
/// LIGHT is the debut album from Manchester, UK-based post-rock outfit Civil Service, consisting of five sprawling tracks that, as per the album’s press kit, are a "reflection of the dichotomy of modern society that flutters between beauty and sorrow, order and chaos, light and darkness." Post-rock, as a genre, generally takes the standard Western musical practice of building and releasing tension to expansive extreme, the build and release unfolding over a much longer timeline than the typical rock song, often by orders of magnitude. Here, Civil Service explore these dichotomies through the lens of post-rock having enlisted the aid of long-time 65daysofstatic collaborator Dave Sanderson at Crystal Ship Studios in Sheffield.
After opening with some sparse piano and spoken word, the band gradually enters the conversation on the album’s first song "She Would Never RETREAT; Their Negativity Just Made Her Stronger." There’s a slow swelling of lushness with some interesting drum patterns mixed in I wouldn’t necessarily have expected to about the four-and-a-half minute-mark, when a fairly abrupt cut signals a re-set of sorts, as the band takes a beat to continue to build upward into an ethereal groove. At ten minutes, the band exits stage left and the solitary piano is all that is heard, a second re-set as the drums re-enter followed by additional layers including the spoken word with the track reaching yet further upward in melancholic grandeur. It then slowly unwinds as Caroline Cawley (Dystopian Future Movies, Church Of The Cosmic Skull) narrates and for a bit longer still before "it fell silent."
The second and third tracks, "Their LINES OF COMMUNICATION, Severed" and "Now Their Backs Are Bent In Postures Of APOLOGY," are largely defined by their driving, propulsive quality while also sporting a kind of post-new wave feel at times, though the tracks also give ample room for the quieter moments to have their space. "She Felt The Yawning Skyline: Intangible" opens up with this gorgeous, meditative section I found particularly noteworthy; the track largely follows this more subdued trajectory with some ebbs and flows before reaching a crescendo near its conclusion, segueing into the final track "She Felt The Yawning Skyline: Meaningless" with an ambient passage. The first two minutes of said track follow the more meditative trajectory of its predecessor before picking up into more of that post-new wave-informed style the band employed earlier. The second half of "She Felt The Yawning Skyline: Meaningless" opens up and out, featuring some soaring "whoa-oh" gang vocals as accompaniment, bringing us to the record’s conclusion, its dying embers a kind of reprise of the end of "She Would Never RETREAT; Their Negativity Just Made Her Stronger."