With 2007’s Yes I Am, Swedish quartet pg.lost announced themselves to the world as one of the brightest instrumental acts around, with an EP that was one of the best post-rock releases of the year. While that branch of the instrumental tree has been heralded by some ‘experts’ as boring and repetitive, the truth was more obvious but less exciting; post-rock had become saturated. However, beneath the sub-par releases, there are signs that post-rock in its purest from is still alive, you just have to look beyond the obvious This Will Destroy You and at the likes of Caspian, Gifts From Enola, And So I Watch You From Afar, and  Beware of Safety. With their first full length release, many will expect pg.lost to add their name to that list, but there is something lacking in It’s Not Me It’s You! that stops it reaching those heights.

In his review of Yes I Am, Nick Brandt noted that “Most of the songs check out at around the 6:30 mark, making the songs just epic enough without getting boring or too repetitive.” Unfortunately, pg.lost seem to have abandoned this strategy for the latest album, with every track going over that 6:30 mark, and a number suffer by dragging on a little bit longer than they should, losing impetus along the way. In some strange twist of irony, the strongest tracks on the album just happen to be the longest, proving that pg.lost aren't incapable of writing some effective, powerful long tracks, just that they haven't mastered it quite yet.

“The Day Shift” begins with a slow buildup of dark tension, before bursting into life amongst rhythmic passages and tremolo guitars, only to subside into an airy relapse of twinkling piano and swirling harmonies. Just as you’re expecting a meandering fade out, everything explodes, Caspian-like, into a wailing, crashing finale. It is one of the best opening tracks of recent memory, and will no doubt be high on my favorite tracks of the year. Why, oh why can’t the whole album be like this?

While the poorer tracks on It’s Not Me It’s You! are not bad in any shape of form, they fail to set pulses racing like we now know pg.lost can. Both “Maquina” and “Head High” offer nothing more than stock loud-quiet dynamics, with the former climaxing almost identically to the album’s opener, while “Pascal’s Law” seems to take forever to build to the inevitable payoff. It is this sense of inevitability which lets pg.lost down; seasoned post-rock listeners will know what is coming, and what to expect, with most songs building towards a finale that isn’t quite worth the wait.

It is a relief that “Jonathan” offers up an element of surprise, where a distorted bass line and metal-esque drumming send you tumbling into the arms of the hypnotic, ambient ending. The album closes with “Siren,” another worthy contender for track of the year, and a perfect of example of how good pg.lost can be, even stretched over the twelve minute mark. The elegiac opening ambience slowly gathers momentum as each delicate layer is added, from chiming guitar to hushed vocal harmonies, “Siren” has an effortless and enchanting sway to it. As everything comes crashing down around you, you can’t help but notice how uplifting, how joyful, how explosive this is, and in the blink of an eye, twelve minutes has passed. Epic only touches the surface.

Given the incredible nature of the opening and closing tracks, it is somewhat understandable that in the immediate aftermath It’s Not Me It’s You! is a disappointment, but even if you remove “The Day Shift” and “Siren” from the equation, the rest of the tracks are still nothing out of the ordinary. As I mentioned, the remaining four songs are solid examples of post-rock, but after Yes I Am, pg.lost promised so much more than standard fare. Still, it is worth remembering that we’re talking about a debut album here, one that will no doubt please many fans looking for something to supplement their casual post-rock needs, and with the talent to create two of the tracks of the year, pg.lost are thankfully here to stay.

-James Ould