Early Day Miners - All Harm Ends Here - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

What happens when a band of resolute perfectionists make their most accessible and upbeat rock album ? a departure so startling, you almost want to call it Inchtheir pop albumInch? When Early Day Miners loosen up, it's almost a different band. The complex layers and atmospherics are still there, but front-and-center on the Treatment are insistent basslines and straightforward melodies on multiple organs and guitars. One of the poppiest here, InchSo SlowlyInch, manages to combine a buoyant Cure bassline, a wah-wah solo worthy of Robert Fripp, and yet still conveys the lazy drift of summer.

Mentored by Daniel Lanois, Daniel Burton has been putting his project-oriented stamp on a variety of records the last ten years and it has all coalesced into this career-defining work. InchOffshoreInch is one continuous piece, made up of six distinct songs. It's equally beautiful and noisy, composed though loose, akin to the late '80s/early '90s 4AD-laden world of shoegaze wash-rock like Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Mark Hollis, their predecessor Peter Gabriel, or modern day saint William Basinski. In the Lanois/Eno tradition, Burton collected an all-star cast to flesh out his vision with members of Horace Pinker, Olo, Black Mountain, Windsor for the Derby, Unwed Sailor, and Tortoise.

Early Day Miners - Jefferson at Rest [COMPACT DISCS] date 04/22/2003