I was talking with a friend about the post-rock genre the other day, when it occurred to me that a better name for the genre would be "postmodern rock". Both post-rock and postmodern literature share a lot of features, so it'd be a natural fit. Both like to warp existing ideas and genres until they're practically unrecognisable. Both also tend to be appreciated a lot by pompous music reviewers. Most importantly though, both of them require the artist in question, whether they be musicians or authors, to walk a fine line between creating unimaginative pieces with no artistic merit, and creating pieces so arrogant and pretentious that any potential audience will soon be alienated.

Red Sparowes looked, at first, like it was going to fall into the "arrogant and pretentious" camp. The unusually spelled band name didn't help, nor did the fact that this is a post-rock supergroup of sorts, featuring members of Isis, The Halifax Pier, and Neurosis. A single glance at the lengthy track names (featuring such titles as Buildings began to stretch wide across the sky, and the air filled with a reddish glow), made me fear the worst. It came as a pleasant surprise then to find that while this is post-rock that doesn't really do anything new, it's well constructed enough to be inoffensive, while at the same time it has enough crescendos and lengthy, intertwined musical passages to keep even the most fanatical post-rock listener happy.

The actual sound of the album, as suggested by the links with Isis and Neurosis, is quite heavy and oppressive. This doesn't mean that the album is a metal album, or that it builds itself up with traditional rock riffs as do, say, Mogwai, but the heavy metal influence, particularly from genres like prog-metal and symphonic-metal are quite plain to see here. Unlike many of their contemporaries, there are no obvious string parts here, pretty much everything is generated with the traditional rock instruments of guitar, bass, and drums, albeit with a fair bit of feedback and other effects scattered through the music.

As for the music itself, it's fairly standard for the genre. Most of the songs run for over five minutes, and there are a couple that exceed ten. As mentioned before, the song titles are almost laughably long, but they are usually at least effective in establishing a context to these instrumental pieces, helping you form an image of what the song is going to look like, and then letting the music narrate that image. Mechanical sounds cascaded through the city walls and everyone reveled in their ignorance is a particular highlight, beginning with a few minutes of distortion and feedback, before a clean guitar line enters the music and begins a journey through three or four musical sections, each of them drenched in echo effects and sturdy basslines.

It's hard to say that "At The Soundless Dawn" is a revolutionary album, so going by the unspoken rules of this post-modern rock, it might be a bit of a failure. Despite the lack of any surprises though, it's a phenomenally well-constructed album that has a lot to offer. Fans of Godspeed You Black Emperor! and similar bands would be doing themselves a disservice if they didn't check this out.