Water From Your Eyes: Structure
Delighting in contradiction, Structure is an ambitious LP
that approaches it’s own impressive scope and aspiration with a tongue-in-cheek humor and a reflexive self-effacement that wonderfully reflects the personalities of it’s
creators. Influenced by Scott Walker’s sole 80s release,
Climate of Hunter and the works of the colorfield painter
Mark Rothko, it’s a concept album that pokes fun of the
idea of concept albums, exploring high-minded ideas
while subverting them and applying a hyper-focused eye
for detail in the service of a series of clever misdirections.
Tracks like opening single “Quotations” see the band
at their freewheeling best, drawing from the persistent
and building rhythms of the dance music tradition that has
long been one of the many elements of their sound, to
construct a mesmerizing forest of sounds out of repeating
vocal samples, swooping synth lines and eventually cascading break beats. At the other end of the album’s auditory spectrum, “When You’re Around” is an almost-saccharine nod at the band’s more pop-oriented work to date.
When taken together Structure paints a picture too vast to be
taken in at once, but repeated listens reveal melodic subtleties, rhythmic minutiae, and lyrical repetition that allow the
whole to come into focus. Whether the lasting impression is
concrete or abstract will depend on the listener’s perspective, but from any vantage point Structure is a thrillingly original release and a first-class achievement in brutalist pop
