Port Royal

Dying In Time

Label: Klik

Genre: Electronica / Ambient / Experimental

Availability

CD Digi / Cardboard €7.99 Second Hand

Out of Stock

Disc: Very Good Plus
Cover: Near Mint
Two years have passed since the release of Italian post-shoegaze band Port-Royal's ‘Afraid To Dance’ album on Resonant, but they have been keeping very busy with writing, recording, touring Europe and Russia, as well as creating remixes for the likes of Ladytron and Felix Da Housecat. For their third album, Port-Royal have expanded their sound to encompass the more electronically skewed perspectives of synth-pop and even techno while still holding steadfast to their roots and original core sound that has always lain somewhere between shoegaze and emotively soaring ambient. Hailed by fans and critics alike as the next evolution in post-millenial post-rock, Port-Royal's boundless approach to the genre fuses elements of ambient techno, shoegaze, and melodic IDM, recalling at times the mid-90s output of Orbital and Aphex Twin while indebted to the guitar-driven aesthetic of genre forebears Mogwai and Sigur Ros. With the exclusion of the three-movement, slowburning ‘Hermitage’, the majority of ‘Dying In Time’ finds Port-Royal burying their contrapuntal guitar work under layers of gauzy synths, pulsing four-on-the-floor beats, and more prominent vocals on over half the album. With tighter song structures and a new melodic focus, Port-Royal's latest effort manages to preserve the ethereal, dream-like quality of their previous work, while making room for the infectiously-catchy ambient pop of tracks like ‘Badling Generation (Losing Hair As We Lose Hopes)’ and ‘Nights In Kiev’. As the title may suggest there is an undercurrent of aching melancholy to ‘Dying In Time’, as if the band are expressing the feelings they have for the temporality of life's situations and feelings.