Ever the sucker for well-constructed artwork, Utopium had me hooked with the beautifully conceived cover for their self-titled debut album before I heard a note. The fact that the band draw upon influences such as A Perfect Circle, No Man, Sigur Ros and Mogwai cements the notion that they are something truly special and, over nine tracks and forty minutes the listener will find themselves drawn into a subtly textured world that ripples with ethereal light and occasional tints of guitar-strewn darkness. Adherents to the principal that it is better say nothing and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and prove it, Utopium keep the lyrics to a minimum, much of their music floating in the eerie world of post-rock with the effect that when the band do employ vocals, the impact is all the greater.
The album opens with the instrumental beauty of ‘now it exists’, a hazy, gently progressive piece of music that sees Tito de Pinho aping Paz Lenchantin’s stormy bass lines as the rest of the band indulge in a gentle piece of shoe-gazing that steadfastly refuses to explode, the guitars threatening to ignite in a tension-inducing display of restraint, but never actually doing so. Vocals first appear in ‘above the world’ which sits somewhere between Low, the Cure and Radiohead with its echoing guitars, strangely detached vocals and hypnotic beat. ‘Autumn in Bangkok’ similarly shifts between subtle, breathy vocals and achingly beautiful guitarscapes courtesy of Andres Soto, the music a door into the unknown, the vocals the only human voice in an otherwise abandoned landscape awash with colour and light. ‘Cloudy 34’ takes a jazzy beat (from drummer Guillaume Labaume) and uses it to underpin a gloriously hypnotic piece that meanders dreamily as if it had slipped unnoticed from Mogwai’s stunning ‘CODY’ album, its instrumental charms slowly building over five spell-binding minutes. ‘Chase them out’, despite being built on organic instrumentation, does much to recall Massive Attack at their ‘Mezzanine’-hogging best, all semi-whispered vocals and throbbing bass. It may not appease those looking for an instant and aggressive fix, but for those who like their music to worm its way insidiously into the brain, this darkly progressive post-rock is for you.
As if aware that the music is starting to flow into a black hole of consciousness, ‘stardust’ is a rich blast of psychedelic rock with driving bass, echoing guitars and a vocal that sounds like Kraftwerk being delivered by Gary Numan, Maxime Petrovski’s staccato delivery perfectly underpinned by the paranoia-inducing rush of Cure-esque guitars and spacey sound effects. ‘Lost in the cyberspace’ opens amidst a swirl of feedback and ominous percussion, hints of Sonic Youth washed through the band’s sound as the sonic poetry of the guitars recalls the gnarled beauty of a Lee Renaldo composition. ‘Volumen’ is a seven-minute reflection on the true sonic beauty that can be found in sparse arrangements, the spaces between the notes speaking as loudly as the notes themselves, the band’s natural restraint seeing then head once more into the shimmering progressive territory of Mogwai only for the final track, ‘in a heartbeat’ to round out the album with a hint of no man’s tormented world view to be found in the melody. It is the perfect close to the album and it leaves you wanting oh so much more.
Utopium’s music is stunning in every sense of the word. Musically stunning, it is an exercise in restraint from the four musicians who keep themselves stoically in check even as the echo piles up and it feels the tracks must explode. Guillaume, meanwhile, plays to his strengths as a vocalist, keeping things quietly impassioned and the music is ubiquitously excellent throughout. Beautifully packaged in artwork designed by Michael Lunet, the band’s attention to detail is impressive and the emotional punch the album packs is one that is not likely to be forgotten in a hurry. If you admire slow, soulful post rock then Utopium’s wonderful, self-titled debut is for you.
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