
Their newest album, to be released on Consouling Sounds, is a one track, sixty-four minutes lasting epos. It was coined to us as something for fans of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Swans, Cult of Luna, Sigur Ros & This Will Destroy You. For a certain part, those names are quite correct but I don't think Yodok III has much to do with post-rock. Sure, there are the enigmatic drones and soundscapes, slowly building up. Very slowly in this case. There is a calm, gloomy atmosphere and the vague melodies but post-rock, nah, this is something way beyond classification.
What sets Yodok III apart from the aforementioned bands (and from 99% of the musical acts on this earth) is the unpredictable nature of the music. You just don't know what will happen next. In that aspect, this album is a musical thriller; dark, chaotic and captivating. While the first twenty minutes are mostly calm with meandering soundscapes, the whole thing slowly evolves. The guitars gain distortion while the drums introduce themselves as the impending and forward pushing drive behind the whole band.
The beauty of this albums is, you can enjoy it at several different volume levels. It can be a calm, yet gritty, ambient album when you play it on a low volume. It can be adventurous background music on a medium level. But when you play this thing loud, as loud as a live concert, this becomes a massively compelling piece of music. In the end, yes, perhaps this is best to be compared to Godspeed You Black Emperor, but, even with half the personnel, Yodok III easily manages to deliver something more powerful, more frantic and more explosive.
This is simply awesome. Some albums come in like a comet, others like a freight train. 'This Earth We Walk Upon' comes in like a gargantuan glacier, leveling everything in its path.
Serge