There’s something strangely frustrating about ‘Faces in the Architecture.’ You see, Building The State are musically very good. The ideas stretched across this lengthy 4 track EP are excellent, and their criss-crossed blend of Explosions in the Sky styled delayed guitar work and Minus the Bear-esque bass lines should be any post-rock fans’ wet dream. Though somewhere along the line this record falls short of the aforementioned comparisons… only just mind.
Opener ‘Untitled IV’ had me enthralled first listen around and I felt a slight nervous apprehension as the bass and guitar lines began to weave meticulously in and out of one another…. had I just stumbled across something very special? Maybe it’s that I then set my expectations too high, but after such a fantastic start the record then spiralled down into the depths of good/better than average. That is until the beautifully destructive ‘Open Hands to the Sky’ somewhat reassured me of my early conceptions.
‘Faces in the Architecture’ will please almost any post-rock fan out there willing to give BTS a chance. However, with a resurgence of similar sounding bands seemingly emerging out of every city/town/village/hamlet worldwide at the moment it would be difficult to see BTS making much of an impact on this side of the North Atlantic anytime in the near future… I hope they prove me wrong though.
Rich Rowe