“Sweating lead and iron.”
15 years ago in a quiet town in Sweden’s interior, Oh Hiroshima started as a post-rock DIY recording project. Their first album in 2011 showed a marked Explosions in the Sky influence, with tremolo guitars and expansive crescendos. But from their second album (2015’s In Silence We Yearn), Oh Hiroshima started developing their unique sound, drawing from the darker side of indie, post-rock and shoegaze. Whilst Explosions in the Sky’s music brings shafts of hopeful light, Oh Hiroshima’s is tinged with tasteful melancholy.
Since In Silence We Yearn, Oh Hiroshima’s vocals have been a distinctive feature of their music. Evoking My Bloody Valentine, the singing operates like an instrument in a narrow range, alongside or in contrast to the wider range of guitars. Each track on All Things Shining can then be explored by considering how the human voice and guitar voices intersect.
“Wild Iris” alternates between a bombastic layering of guitar riffs and subdued vocals. The lyrics in the quieter moments express a frustrated angst over conformity (“I’m sweating lead and iron”), an angst which is given voice to by the aggressive final crescendo. “Holiness Movement” opens with punchy guitar lines that contrast with a drawn out vocal melody. The vocals step out as horns fill out the euphoric crescendo.
“Swans in a Field” opens with a swelling chord sequence that rolls into itself, propelling towards a crescendo with layers of strings and piano. “Secret Youth” almost follows a verse-chorus structure, with the guitars complementing the vocals. Restrained guitars in the verse matching the murmured vocal line, and expansive layers matching the higher vocal line in the chorus.
The later tracks on the album are marked with a deeper shade of gloom. In “Rite of Passage“, the voice of a nostalgic lament is built into its climax. On “Deluge“, hushed vocals sit in the centre of the mix between fuzzy bass and eerie, discordant guitar. “Leave Us Behind” has a clean guitar break in the middle that resembles the whimsical gloom of Alcest. Finally, “Memorabilia” develops from a mournful slowcore mixture of whispered vocals and restrained guitar to a masterful post-rock crescendo.
Overall, this album reflects the excellence of the band’s recent work, and shows further how Oh Hiroshima can masterfully combine elements from shoegaze and post-rock to create dark, brooding atmospheres.
7.5/10
All Things Shining releases on the 28th June through Pelagic Records, and can be pre-ordered here.