The Mandelbrot set is a mathematical construct which can be drawn as arty, vaguely psychedelic pictures which have an unlikely property called self-similarity: zooming closer on any of the wispy, spidery filaments in the image reveals tiny mutated copies of the original shapes, which can then be zoomed in on further, and so on, and so forth - forever.

Thus, the post-rock version: All Our Actions Are Constantly Repeated by the Mandelbrot Set.

The repetition suggested in the title and band name is everywhere. Take His Hands Were Too Small... as a microcosm. The spangly guitar riff starts as the track does, and is still going more than seven minutes later with nary a variation. Unidentifiable stringed instruments and keyboards potter around the edges of the track, but always subordinate to the guitar riff, and seemingly compressed into it; there's less space in the track than the mountains of reverb would suggest. When combining the disappointing production with the few ideas - it sounds like a one-minute improvisation looped over eight - the track's hard to hold onto and the attention constantly wanders.

Admittedly, this is the most ambient and understated corner of the album, but the failings of this track are evident throughout. It's difficult, I'm sure, to record the delicately melodic start, middle and end sections of Constellation of Rings while still capturing the distortion-shrouded climaxes that separate them - but it's doable, as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, for one, have shown. Unfortunately, the Mandelbrot Set just don't have the same depth of experience on the knobs, and so everything becomes squashy and almost monotonous throughout.

The major flaw of the album, though, is the music itself. Modulation of tempos, riffs and chords is eschewed in favour of variation in dynamics and structure. The most interesting track Seismic Waves Travelling Through, is where this strategy succeeds best, a subterranean ebb-and-flow pushing the soundscape to a deafening climax without a conventional beat or chord structure. The rest of the album, though, is closer to "music", as seen in the opener And the Rockets Red Glare / Bombs Fill the Air (sans apostrophe, apparently). It's a conventional beat with an angry, noisy guitar wall above it, advancing and receding without ever really making a solid musical connection.

When this type of post-rock is done well, as in Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Do Make Say Think or Because of Ghosts, the listener gets transcendental moments of revelation as one riff morphs into another, or catharsis as the music hits a soaring peak after tense minutes. All Our Actions Are Constantly Repeated is missing these intangibles. The idea of post-rock is here, but the execution is lacking, as the band trip on the fence between music and soundscape.