Sleepy Eyes of Death: Dark Signals (2008) 02/22/2009

Sure, post-rock should be spacious and ethereal, but if it’s going to live up to its name, it should ideally sound like music from the future. Most post-rock acts are instead content with aping the rise-and-fall guitar suites Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai were constructing a decade ago. Meanwhile, Seattle’s Sleepy Eyes of Death (named after the American title of a series 1960s samurai pictures), do not actually promote themselves with this dodgy term, but they might as well, since they approximate what you might hear in a nightclub circa 2109. The quintet’s latest EP, Dark Signals, is one seriously trippy jaunt through alien soundscapes. A couple of the tracks offer minimal vocals, heavily processed robot-ghost transmissions which bleed into the band’s neon ether. Primarily, though, they keep it instrumental, melding lockstep krautrock, keening shoegaze textures and delicious analog synths into an electro-prog haze redolent of monochrome laser patterns and glowing cocktails which billow fog about patrons’ glittering unitards. Dark Signals resembles a glorious collaboration between Cosmos-era Zombi and Before the Dawn Heals Us-era M83, and shows Sleepy Eyes of Death working toward a more powerful identity than evidenced by their already entrancing 2007 full-length, Street Lights for a Ribcage. Turn on, tune in, blast the fuck off.

“Pulse from Breath” (at Nectar Lounge, Seattle, 11/8/08)

SCRAMBLE YOUR FACE