Written: 28th February 2024
Fall Of Leviathan are an instrumental post-rock / post-metal quintet from Switzerland. Comprised of six tracks over the course of fifty-six minutes, and set for release on 1st March 2024, In Waves is their debut album. Inspired by nautical themes and travels, abyssal depths and with references to the writing of Ernest Hemingway and Herman Melville, In Waves is an album brimming with cinematic, soul-stirring and immersive qualities.
Nantucket begins the with a plaintive two note motif, which instantly establishes a feeling of isolated calm. Nothing on In Waves is rushed and each track is given the time to develop naturally, leading to marvellously effective differing tones and colours between quieter and louder moments. Contrasting sections of each track are allowed the time to take hold in the listener’s mind and therein lies the greatest strength of the album. Fall Of Levithan spend the next three minutes of Nantucket steadily adding layers of carefully nuanced textures. In a literary sense, many will recognise Nantucket from Melville’s Moby Dick. Hemingway did spend some time on the island (his first short story was inspired by a conversation with a local fisherman) but never set a story in that location. It is a quote from Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea that is used during a spoken word accompaniment, two thirds of the way into the track. “He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea. He thought of how some men feared being out of sight of land in a small boat and knew they were right in the months of sudden bad weather.” At the last of these words, Nantucket exhibits an abrupt change in tempo, volume and power that reflects the often-rapid changes in conditions experienced by those who spend much of their lives at sea. A thoughtfully structured opener, Nantucket exhibits the patient approach Fall Of Levithan take to entice the listener into their watery world.
Following Nantucket with the title track, the band begin again in a floating reverie of tranquillity, Loïc Fleury’s synthesisers adding depth to the ambient characteristics. There is a simplicity to some of the melodies in these moments but this only serves to beguile the listener. More feelings of motion and approaching vulnerability are added as the track develops towards the central post-metal movement. Fall Of Leviathan can be powerful without losing a sense of purpose. As In Waves returns to calmer waters, for the last four minutes, Fall Of Leviathan repeat a two-part eight note ostinato which becomes increasingly hypnotic as time passes. It is a resonant, harmonious ending to the piece, the nine minutes of which disappear into the ether in a seemingly much shorter time.
Almost all the tracks on In Waves begin placidly but Pacific – the longest track on the album at thirteen minutes - starts with doom inspired riffing, some of the harshest percussion (by drummer Emma Richon) on the album and the aura of a mounting tempest. One of the heaviest sections on In Waves, the entire band release the more sinister, darker shades of their instrumentation; however, only ninety seconds into Pacific, the band take things all the way down to one of the most comforting, chilled passages of music on the album. Time seems to slow down as we are left gently drifting on peaceful waves. Across the next six minutes, Fall Of Levithan inexorably draw us closer to another approaching storm. Once it breaks, David Seuret’s bass rumbles and crashes as we hopelessly succumb to the thunderous conditions and our fate is left uncertain as the ending drone section takes hold.
Spermwhale, which follows, begins as if we have awoken bobbing on the shores of a sunlit island, with beautiful, soothing guitar and balmy, laid-back tribal influenced drumming. Shortly into the track however, guitars crash, bringing our musing to an end. Guitarists Régis Mérillat and Marc Wattenhofer have the ability to change from seductively subdued to impressively monumental in a matter of seconds. Their interplay is a delight to experience, whether harmonically gliding through fair-weather clouds or musically interpreting the deluge, devastation and danger of the perils associated with the ocean. Red Bay, which is interspersed with the sounds of waves and seabirds, repeats the structure of the majority of the tracks heard so far but maintains the entrancing, unhurried feel, lulling the listening into further reverie throughout almost of all of its nine and a half minutes.
Final track Ahkab (sic) immediately terminates any lingering serenity as we join Herman Melville’s single-minded Captain as he obsesses about his ultimately futile hunt for the white whale that maimed him. In three distinct sections, Ahkab begins with some moments of true musical violence, bringing to life the initial brutal encounters and fierce battles Captain Ahab and the crew of his ship, The Pequod, have with Moby Dick. More muted but only temporary emotions ensue as Ahab carefully plans his revenge, illustrated by a longer spoken word section taken from the 1956 film starring Gregory Peck. A final cacophony of dissonant guitars and noise laden synths build towards the final confrontation and Ahab’s destruction.
In Waves is not an album for the impatient or for those looking for huge differences in style across the album. Instead, competently constructed exquisite pieces of post-rock evolve gradually over several minutes, allowing the listener time to contemplate and fully involve themselves in the moment. Whether it be in the warming temperatures of a sandy bay or fighting the crashing squall of the open sea, In Waves is never less than completely engaging. Written to ensnare and fascinate the listener (and working particularly well on headphones), it is best enjoyed by fully committing to the experience.
In Waves is released on 1st March 2024.
Visit Fall Of Leviathan's bandcamp page here to (pre)-order the album: https://fallofleviathan.bandcamp.com/album/in-waves
Fall Of Leviathan online
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