If words are loaded pistols like Sartre suggested, then what is music? Often considered something beyond language, it is in its most basic form a collection of vibrations that we each swallow and ingest through our ears and experience as individuals in a completely unique fashion. That being said, an objective music review is impossible. It’s like attempting to explain water to something that has never tasted it. “Well, it’s wet,” (so are my girlfriend’s pants) “and refreshing” (as is getting in my girlfriend’s pants) “and you need it to survive” (yeah… you get the idea). Bottom line: welcome to a subjective review.

Best known to critics for its epic orchestrated instrumentation eerily akin to GY!BE, Sparrows Swarm and Sing and its Magic Bullet debut O Shenandoah, Mighty Death Will Find Me exhibits a clear evolution in musical expression while not completely losing its benchmark sound. Like new tentacles on the same old body, the album maintains clear origins, but is now reaching out into new depths as it utilizes a broad array of elements including folky acoustic passages and vocal melodies, sparse clink/clatter, and some paralyzing walls of sound that stray from the traditional post-rock format, but still challenge the listener with perplexing intensity.

The disc opens with “Across Canyons/canons”, a somber 25 minute encounter that in reality needs no further explanation than a re-read of the song title. This track weaves an impassioned journey across gentle rolling hills that unfold like an invitation at your feet and bottomless valleys that wisp to life beneath you, tickling your toes like unknown gravities. There are no mathematical patterns buried here, and the climactic build ups tend to operate on calm water and rising tides, unlike the choppy, chaotic bursts of post-rock forefathers Mogwai.

“Father Death / Mother Nature” and its two succeeding tracks is where the divergence from the prior EPs takes place. Complex songs built on minimalist and sparse foundations, including the clatter of pots and pans paralleling the sound of in-laws Set Fire to Flames somehow manage to rattle and subdue the listener at the same time. The last three tracks, being the bulk of the album, feature ASMZ inspired vocal melodies that build, build, and then break into a mass array of volume that conjures images of a musical orgy surrounding a campfire. Once you get past the visual metaphor of loin-clothed, long-bearded, Neanderthal men running around tapping the triangle, it’s actually quite an amazing sensation.

The brutish analogy above is not meant in negative light whatsoever. These are homegrown, almost tribal songs rooted deep in the soil. Whereas Explosions in the Sky and Mono give you a dizzy, head in the clouds sensation, SSAS will gently tug at your inhibitions and bring you down gently to the ground where you’ll find yourself mindlessly kissing the dirt. There’s that *something* to this sound that is so completely organic in nature that it feels as if it has stemmed from a seed buried eons ago in the belly of the earth.

The Sartre quote used to introduce this review was meant to elucidate the individualistic nature of music and specifically this release. I asked numerous others to describe the album in a single word and received responses from “disappointing” to “heroic.” Quite simply, O Shenandoah is the soundtrack to Existentialism. It is something that cannot be defined except by you, the listener experiencing the reverberations, and refuses to subject itself to the rules of collective will. The personal experience I felt while under the spell of these four tracks—one of reposeful, placid waves wrapping gently around me like a cocoon, before subtly pulling me underneath the water again as the fuzz of a broken tremolo sinks to the ocean floor—is one you very well may not have.

Regardless, the bottom line remains that while SSAS continues to grow and evolve, it remains extremely comfortable and honest with its music. This is something that cannot be said about many bands that have crow-barred their way into the genre of instrumental rock. Whether or not this album flies through one ear and out the other, or sinks in through your pores and clogs your veins with pleasure, it is imperative to retain the memory of the personality behind this release. In response to another pretentious philosopher who said, “Without music life would be a mistake” I can only offer the statement that without bands like this, post-rock would be dead.

-Jonathan Brooks