Lights Out Asia – In The Days Of Jupiter

Lights Out Asia are a band saddled with genres: post-rock, shoegaze and ambient are all adjectives frequently flung at the Milwaukee trio, although neither seems to sum up their noirist, exploratory music succinctly.

The key ingredient of In The Days Of Jupiter is a dense electronic fuzz — a la German shoegazer Ulrich Schnauss and, to a lesser extent, My Bloody Valentine — which guides these largely instrumental pieces through their mysterious, post-industrial soundscapes. Occasionally though, the sonic plateau is shattered, as on Except Europa, which breaks out into an explosive, slow-boiled post-rock epic, with added colouration deep in the mix from faint, ethereal vocals.

The likes of Great Men From Unhealthy Ground and Currents Meet The Tide deal with Eno-like, space age dreamscapes well enough, but ultimately fail to add anything new or exciting into the mix, which is the trap In The Days Of Jupiter falls into a little too often. [Martin Skivington]