Antidawn EP - Burial: Review
Burial
is one of the most acclaimed and one of the most mysterious artists in all of electronica. After releasing two classic albums in the 2000's and a number of massively acclaimed EPs in the 2010's. After his last few releases were more compositionally abstract in design, Antidawn was promised to be his most ambient leaning project to date.
Review By Lav:
I love Burial and that's no secret. He's made appearances on my singles and EP lists a few times but it's really the stuff that I didn't get to cover like Untrue and Rival Dealer that show off why his chilling electronic soundscapes are so compelling. Given my love for ambient music and his distinctive sound I was excited to see what direction he took on this EP. One of the first things that surprised me about the project is that despite being an EP it's almost 45 minutes long. Perhaps even more surprising is that it features dozens of distinct ambient soundscapes many of which only last for a few minutes and connect together to create songs. It makes the project a bit difficult to judge on a song by song basis, but as a whole I found it pretty rewarding.
The most cohesive track of the bunch is also its best. New Love features two distinct passages across 7 minutes. The pair work together well and I enjoy both of them. The song actually seems to have a genuine lyrical thesis via a vocal sample and a consistent sonic vision. The female vocals are laced perfectly into the songs dark and chilly mix and the subtle manipulations that they go under throughout the song change enough to keep them sonically refreshing. While the second half is marginally more instrumentally present with haunting chimes and tattering drums but neither stick around long enough to break up the fragile beauty and if anything they actually add to it.
Opening track Strange Neighborhood is another highlight that makes use of crackling ambient noise and chilly expansive vocal samples. While the composition employs slow sweeping changes the actual moment to moment of the song can be surprisingly busy with sounds cutting through walls of the crackle. While some parts of the record took time to grow on me I have been enjoying this since the first time I heard it. The other longer track in the bunch is also a highlight, and while all Burial songs del in atmosphere Shadow Paradise leans even more heavily into it. While the track works in 4 or 5 distinct sections across 10 minutes generally speaking it deploys some echoing keys that run into and expansive background and a number of very different sounding vocal samples. Even when it seems like these passages a strewn together at random if you digest it like 5 different songs played one after another they really are a great bunch.
For an example of it not working that well we have Antidawn which by comparison is much less dense in its atmosphere and leaves plenty of quiet emptiness in its composition. While the bassline ability to translate vocal samples into supremely eerie soundscapes still comes on strong, there isn't much here to effectively string together the individual passages in a way that gives them much momentum or direction. The closing track Upstairs Flat is an interesting finale that mixes together some very earnest vocal samples with big sweeping walls of synths and weirdly enough samples that sound like fireworks going off. It can occasionally feel like it's a bit distracting from itself if that makes any sense. It also takes quite a while to get into the most beautiful parts, namely the isolated vocals it ends off with.
Antidawn has plenty of moments that flash the unparalleled brilliance of Burial. His command for sound and use of distinctively chilling vocal samples are still unmatched. It's the presentation of these songs that makes it all a bit more difficult to digest than it needs to be. While Burial has never been one to follow convention occasionally following along with the stop and start nature of these compositions can feel more like a chore than the isolating ambience that it's supposed to give off. Despite those moments I enjoyed my time with the project a lot more than I didn't and if you enjoy anything Burial has done in the past 5 years or so you should have no trouble getting into this. 7/10
This cover is a nice little drawing. While it's very minimal in line and color it has a lot of things happening to fill space. The patchy color makes your eyes move through the subject and I like how all the detail is concentrated in the center. I don't really get an album cover vibe from this and I think if I saw it online without context it could just be a random doodle pulled from the pages of an artists sketchbook. I'm not super hooked on the style of the drawing either, but I like the intention. 5,5/10
For more ambient check out my review of the new Mydreamfever album Rough And Beautiful Place here
