Midas Fall – Cold Waves Divide Us
Monotreme Records
8,0/10,0
Brief:
For the follow-up to their critically lauded, 2018-released full-length, Evaporate, founding MIDAS FALL members Elizabeth Heaton and Rowan Burn are joined by Michael Hamilton. Cold Waves Divide Us sees the band at their most confidently visceral, each song moving beautifully between quiet and loud, gentle and crushing. “This album is a heavier and bigger experience than the last album,” notes Heaton. “We kept the atmospheric strings and ’80s synths of Evaporate but wanted to add heavier layered elements, to represent more what we sound like live.”
Opener “In the Morning We’ll Be Someone Else” starts quietly with serene piano and vocals, ominously ratcheting up the tension to walls of crashing guitars and Heaton’s soaring vocals. “I Am Wrong” thunders along on pounding rhythmic drums swirling around heavy swathes of low and delicate melodic highs. With latest single, “Monsters,” the band are more contemplative, with an ethereal beginning making way for gorgeously syncopated guitar and drums, while “Cold Waves Divide Us” builds slower, allowing Heaton’s voice to gracefully float over the growing force beneath it. “Avalanche” is a bittersweet lullaby showcasing Heaton’s heart-rending vocals in one of the quieter moments on the album. Elsewhere “Point Of Diminishing Return” sees a more electronic influence, with glittering shimmered synths taking the space where guitar melodies were, but with all of the post-rock beauty that the duo are known for, something “Little Wooden Boxes” showcases perfectly, expertly hovering between gentle clean guitar and piano, and exhilarating, uplifting full-band, full-bore epic.
Tracklist:
- In The Morning We’ll Be Someone Else
- I Am Wrong
- Salt
- In This Avalanche
- Point Of Diminishing Return
- Monsters
- Atrophy
- Cold Waves Divide Us
- Little Wooden Boxes
- Mute
Main Focus Tracks:
- In The Morning We’ll Be Someone Else
- I Am Wrong
- Cold Waves Divide Us
Other Recommended Tracks:
- Point Of Diminishing Return
- Little Wooden Boxes
Line-Up:
Elizabeth Heaton – vocals, guitars, strings, synths, piano, drums
Rowan Burn – guitars, synths, piano, drums
Michael Hamilton – bass, synths, drums
Comments:
Midas Fall’s Cold Waves Divide Us is a pleasant surprise, full of quality and musicality, Scottish post-rock duo who incorporate elements of rock, electronica, and prog into their shimmering and ethereal sound.
Contact:
Video:
Selected Discography:
Eleven. Return And Revert – 2010
Wilderness – 2013
The Menagerie Inside – 2015
Evaporate – 2018
Cold Waves Divide Us – 2024
Photo Credit: Stephen Alexander