Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Ask not what heart beats in the dark, what noise the pulse makes in the night when alone, for a sense of the terror it is better to understand the fear of hearing thumps of trepidation in the sunlight, what Throbs in day!
The combustion of insurrection, the pose of the personal inferno burning in the soul, these may set the world on fire during the hours in which a person’s dreams should be fuelled with love, but it is in daylight when the realm of dissatisfaction, when the angry thoughts of horror first take root, and those Throbs, those whispers of panic and dread are tougher to ignore, they are incessant and beguiling, they are the sound of peace being driven to the tune of the awakening, delightful, outcome.
It is an outcome that is passionately captured by Greek trio The Fog Ensemble as they recreate the sense of a city at play, at work, and one caught within the loose boundaries of unspoken cinematic narrative, of a score that could breathe alongside a classical film of Greek culture, or descend into the fiery, but welcome, pits of a horror movie, the screams of the unbridled damned matching those of a city plagued by unimaginable creatures; a twin effect that the mind readily admires for its pliability and sound.
For Antonis Karakostas, Nicholas Kondylis and George Nanopoulos, Throbs is arguably a perfect expression of the way they look and hear music, not confined or encumbered by the adapting of vocals or lyrics, they have found a way to tackle the instrumental by making the music declare its intention early, they make the music narrate the passages as if being spoken by some seasoned thespian, all the ranges of emotions being felt, all the nuances captured by the instruments at hand. In a similar way that Sergei Prokofiev demanded attention with Peter and the Wolf, so to The Fog Ensemble resonate the scenes before them, only with the added bonus of using a heavier and concrete sound.
In the pieces Lighthouse, Droog Party, Weather Girl, False Moves and the album title track Throbs, The Fog Ensemble excel with charm and a dash of the ranging fear, a resonating eruption which would have graced any John Carpenter film and one that pounces on the unsuspecting with a sense of glee.
An album of strength, of pride in a personal war against the minimalism and the underwhelming, Throbs is a gift bestowed on the genre’s fans in Europe.
Ian D. Hall