Press releases, as I have almost certainly opined before, are something to be treated with a certain shovelfull of salt. Their sole purpose is to convince you that the product in your hands is good and therefore they lack the objectivity needed to satisfactorily describe a given release. Therefore when a disc arrives with only its limited packaging as a guide to its contents, interest is immediately piqued. Did the company in question forget to put a press sheet in? Are the band of the opinion that their music is so good it doesn’t need one? Is it so indefinably unusual that a press sheet would be rendered redundant? There is clearly only one way to find out and so, with no little degree of curiosity, I placed the album entitled ‘Freaks’ by the Belgian band Nox into my player and waited for the fireworks to start.
Well fireworks was perhaps too strong a word, but ‘Freaks’ does not disappoint with its gentle ambience. Rather, like Belgium’s other famous export Poirot, it exercises “the little grey cells” to a greater degree than any one CD has any right to do and encourages you to undertake a journey through shattered post-rock vistas and gently echoing canyons of the imagination into the hazy heart of their musical vision. Wisely limiting their CD to just seven tracks (yet still weighing in at forty-odd minutes) Nox carefully construct an album that is hypnotic, deep and full of surprises. Although akin to post-rock with its free flowing instrumental form and shimmering guitars, the majority of ‘Freaks’ recalls Clint Mansell’s groundbreaking ‘requiem for a dream’ soundtrack performed by Ennio Morricone and Low, while atmospheric effects such as cloudbursts and thunder erupt around you. This is certainly true of the subtle ‘electricity’ which is as deceptive as a pool of clear blue water which looks shallow and tempting but reveals itself upon entry to be monstrously deep and icy cold. At ten minutes it drifts languidly through your consciousness but, as I can attest, it is impossible to do anything else while this music is on – like an accident you find yourself drawn away from whatever you are doing and dragged back to it as if no less than your full attention will do. Follow up ‘the monsoon’ is no less hypnotic, with gentle dubbed-out drums and soft guitar vying for space with the violin and throbbing bass. Fans of Mogwai will lap this up but then so will aficionados of Massive Attack, Tricky, Morcheeba and Pelican such is the intelligent, cross-genre appeal of the music on offer. The perfect soundtrack to a grey and rainy day, you’ll find yourself ensnared within Nox’s silken web far more quickly than you might imagine.
‘Transition’ is a short track at five minutes, with rolling drums and soft violin ushering in a snaking bass line that weaves its way around you while the violin stabs holes in the melody becoming increasingly distorted and agitated as the track spins on. ‘Smoke’ sees the sound stripped back down from the lush predecessor to a bare bones rhythm track hammered out between cymbal and guitar which serves to build a level of tension via the sort of echoing, Eastern-tinged soundscapes that the Doors utilised to such effect in their lengthier jams only for everything to evaporate into ‘dust’, a short segue track that lasts for barely three minutes and which develops the Eastern theme still further with its unusual rhythms and insistent melody. ‘Doppler effect’ is another highlight, although in fairness that’s just a personal preference as there is absolutely no low point to this album, with it’s odd spoken word vocal and skeletal drums providing the backdrop for some scintillating bass and violin work all of which is only leading up to the massive title track which concludes the album with another eleven minute work of wonder filled with strangely folk-influenced melodies, exceptional drumming and stunning musicianship all round. It’s an absorbing, beautiful, suspenseful work of art and a track of which the creators should be rightly proud.
Overall ‘Freaks’ was an utter blow from left field. I hadn’t expected the content to be what it was or quite as good as it was. With elements of Pink Floyd, soundtrack music, Mogwai, Low, Isis and Pelican floating through their emotive music and a harshly disciplined approach to album sequencing that means not a single note is wasted or left over, this is a wonderful, beautiful, chilled out yet slightly sinister record that rewards multiple listens and provides the perfect soundtrack to those tired evenings when watching or reading something feels like just too much work. Thoughtful, intelligent and quite astonishingly beautiful this is a brilliant record.
Find out more at www.myspace.com/noxtrio
