Another day, another post-rock album. It seems like these things are coming out faster than I can possibly listen to them, and unfortunately, a lot of them are dreary, uninspired, and fail to capitalise on the potential offered by the genre. Rachel's aren't like that though, they've been around a bit, and they know what they're doing.

Their latest album, "Systems/Layers" shows just how well they do their thing. While the title initially suggested to me some kind of computer or electronic scheme, the actual music is as organic and natural as can be. Interspersed through the pianos, string sections, and faint echoing percussion, are fragmentary vocal samples, not quite enough to actually catch any meaning, but just enough to give the music a distinctly urban sense, a feel of a prosperous, bustling city. An excellent example of this is Arterial, where a staccato piano fades out in favour of a cacophony of voices, sounding like a massive telephone crosstalk accident. You can make out single words here and there, but what you get is so devoid of context that it doesn't actually give any explicit meaning, just a sense of busy people going about their ordinary lives.

When you move away from the disconnected vocal samples, which are by far my favourite part of the album, you move into the instrumentation. You have to really, because there isn't really much else here, only one track (the gorgeous Last Things Last) has any conventional lyrics, the rest of the music is entirely instrumental, and largely devoid of any conventional song structures. Many of the tracks are simple ideas based around a single instrument repeated for about a minute before they fade off into the next segment. Unfortunately, some of these tracks, like the string-heavy Even-Odd and the reverberating percussion combined with what sounds like a swarm of angry insects of Singing Bride stay for a bit longer than is necessary. However, when things do come together, like in the six-minute Water From The Same Source, the effects are stunning.

On the whole, this album might be a bit too oblique and inaccessible for those who aren't already familiar with the genre or Rachels previous work. However, for people who are looking for something that's cerebral and just a little bit challenging, it's a fairly safe bet that you'll enjoy this record.

Another day, another post-rock album. It seems like these things are coming out faster than I can possibly listen to them, and unfortunately, a lot of them are dreary, uninspired, and fail to capitalise on the potential offered by the genre. Rachel's aren't like that though, they've been around a bit, and they know what they're doing.

Their latest album, "Systems/Layers" shows just how well they do their thing. While the title initially suggested to me some kind of computer or electronic scheme, the actual music is as organic and natural as can be. Interspersed through the pianos, string sections, and faint echoing percussion, are fragmentary vocal samples, not quite enough to actually catch any meaning, but just enough to give the music a distinctly urban sense, a feel of a prosperous, bustling city. An excellent example of this is Arterial, where a staccato piano fades out in favour of a cacophony of voices, sounding like a massive telephone crosstalk accident. You can make out single words here and there, but what you get is so devoid of context that it doesn't actually give any explicit meaning, just a sense of busy people going about their ordinary lives.

When you move away from the disconnected vocal samples, which are by far my favourite part of the album, you move into the instrumentation. You have to really, because there isn't really much else here, only one track (the gorgeous Last Things Last) has any conventional lyrics, the rest of the music is entirely instrumental, and largely devoid of any conventional song structures. Many of the tracks are simple ideas based around a single instrument repeated for about a minute before they fade off into the next segment. Unfortunately, some of these tracks, like the string-heavy Even-Odd and the reverberating percussion combined with what sounds like a swarm of angry insects of Singing Bride stay for a bit longer than is necessary. However, when things do come together, like in the six-minute Water From The Same Source, the effects are stunning.

On the whole, this album might be a bit too oblique and inaccessible for those who aren't already familiar with the genre or Rachels previous work. However, for people who are looking for something that's cerebral and just a little bit challenging, it's a fairly safe bet that you'll enjoy this record.