I rarely have a problem talking about music, but it’s taken me a month of willing listening, and lots of coffee, to be able to be coherent about “Borders”, the debut release from UK duo Combover Beethoven. How does one describe an album that takes Berlin-school electronic sequencers, mixes them with rock drums and dream-pop washes of guitar, adds pointed lyrics that rise and recede in the mix? “Electronic rock”? “Indie dream-pop post-krautrock”? You begin to see my dilemma, but the short of it is: it’s a rewarding album that does what albums should do–take you on a ride.
Songs here take their time to develop. The album’s opener “Oxygen” floats for a good 3 minutes of slow synthesizer bliss before the vocals hit and the rest kicks in. This makes way for the rockier “The Privacy of Rooms”, kicking in with a heavy bass sequence and a quicker tempo. “Valley Town” could be a mainstay on any shoegaze record, consisting of a resonating guitar line and a vocal. “Race to the Sun” is a catchy song with the lightest touch of an indie-pop feel to it, behind the rocking guitar. The slow melancholy of “Beach House” breaches the surface into propelling single “Sunday Best”. The entire thing ends with the enigmatic “Who, Me?”–beginning with an American political speech, to kick in at 2 minutes with the heaviest music on the album, an instrumental that continues to build over its 7:24 into a finish that increases in pressure but never quite breaks before it seemingly collapses inward.
It’s rare to hear an album that is so consistent in its sound and yet reaches outside itself with sonic twists and tempo changes. The album compels repeated listening, and unlike a lot of modern records, it’s hard to turn it off in the middle. Perhaps that’s why I struggled so hard to write this review; it’s inevitably easier to pick something apart than to praise it, and yet praise is what this record deserves. It’s a perfect album, hands down.
(For an added bonus, go to YouTube and check out their “New Underground” video–a 17-minute sonic exploration recorded alongside the album.)
