Nosound - Afterthoughts

Afterthoughts is this kind of album that you wait for. And one of these that you are talking about long after its actual release. That’s because Nosound really whetted our appetites by last year’s EP At The Pier and even more by their 2009 release A Sense Of Loss – thanks to these two albums the band of Giancarlo Erra has gained quite a numerous group of fans, impatient to hear any sound and melody composed by this undoubtedly talented musician. In other words, recently, in some circles, Nosound’s become a household name and they can count on bigger and bigger interest of the audience. I was about to write “prog audience”, but I’d say that along all these years, the music od Nosound has evolved into new, rather post-rock territories (let’s remind though, that their debut album Sol29 released in 2005 caused the group to be labeled as “Porcupine Tree’s clone”). Today, Giancarlo Erra’s band is going along their own path, creating their own trends and most importantly – easily recognizable and very original.

Afterthoughts was being created for over 2 years and its final form was doubtlessly influenced by numerous factors, including some important personal replacements which took place last year. First of all, the group was joined by the drummer Chris Maitland, who used to play with Porcupine Tree and a cellist Marianne De Chastelaine. Later on, two new band members appeared: Marco Berni (keyboards) and Giulio Caneponi (drums). Put together with the musicians from the “old” line-up: Paolo Vigliarolo (guitars), Alessandro Luci (bass) and of course Giancarlo Erra himself (vocals, guitars, keyboards), they created a truly explosive mixture with an unprecedented potential. In some way I feel this album is more 'direct' and powerful, and this is naturally reflected in both music and lyrics. – says leader of Nosound - The whole writing and recording process, as well as the more analog production, was done thinking about things more direct and real, and more varied with lots of new key elements now part of the Nosound music. I absolutely think this is by far Nosound at its best, a big and bold step forward, and the reflection of the creative and personal peak we are at the moment.

Indeed, Afterthoughts is in my opinion the most coherent, mature, but at the same time the most gloomy album out of all Nosound releases. It contains 9 even compositions, kept in the similar style. In fact they form a whole. However, there are two faces of this effect of homogeneity. On one hand, it is a strong side of the album (it is uniform, coherent, smooth), but on the other, it introduces some kind of monotony during listening. I have a feeling that the separate tracks are too similar to each other and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between them. Erra doesn’t help here either, interpreting each composition in an identical way, often balancing between singing and recitation. However, when I listened to Afterthoughts more carefully, I managed to capture a few fragments that are counterpoints in this stream of dark and nostalgic sounds. These are the opening track In My Fears (this is easily the strongest point of the album), Paralysed – sung partly in Italian, the final calm down in the (almost) title composition Afterthought, and also – this track charmed me at the very end – the shortest one (4 minutes 19 seconds) theme in this set – The Anger Song, which eventually became my personal favourite. Still, none of them is really a glaring “peak” among the rest of the music filling this new Nosound’s album. It is a very stylish, dreamy and nostalgic album, maintaining a high level all the time.

I think that the date of the premiere (6th of May) in this particular case may be a little bit unfortunate. With the beautifully blooming spring, with days getting longer and warmer the nostalgic and dark atmosphere of Nousound’s music could not appeal to the listener’s imagination as much as it would have during another season. But, all in all, it is ridiculous to expect Giancarlo Erra to wait with the release of this new and – let’s stress it again - exquisite music until autumn. Well, Afterthoughts is indeed a very autumn album anyway…