The Silent Ballet Review of "Concentric"

It is quite remarkable what one person can accomplish with a little time, motivation, and a background in playing with hardcore bands. Ryan Wasterlain, after moving beyond his hardcore roots, spent a year working on Concentric, hoping to create a record that expresses his musical ideas beyond set genres and methods. What results is a blending of guitar-driven post-rock melodies with ambient, glitchy electronics that weave around each other, allowing deep ambience to be torn apart by rich and complex guitar lines.

“Burn Rebuild Repeat” begins with a rather driving line of plucked guitars that are delayed and offset. The guitars are subsequently overtaken by a heart monitor put through a few choice filters to continually build an uneasy tension. The constant yet hyperactive beeps act as an anchor for the first half of the song until drums and bass mosey in to relieve the tension. An anthem melody proclaims its presence and opens a conduit for a striking release from the pulsing beep. However, the beep finds its way back into the fold and overpowers the sound to drive the song to completion.

Simple, repetitive power chords drive “City of Eternal Youth” forward while glitchy beats and mixed up synths round out the sound, hinting at a 65daysofstatic allusion. One starts to sense the hardcore influences beginning to surface at this point. Song names like “Burn Rebuild Repeat,” “City of Eternal Youth," “Entrench Us,” and “Ceremonial Ghosts” conjure images that surely hearken hardcore elements and hint at some doom-core trying to reach out. Powerful and layered guitar lines that hit the beat with vigor strike a strong hardcore note and add a unique life to the album. Quiet, clean guitars wander around the sonic plane and search for something more while chopped up beats lead them along until more power chords come in to steal the guitar away and unleash “Ceremonial Ghosts."

A variety of timbres are the key elements to Concentric. Sounds are constantly being altered, filtered, delayed, tweaked, chopped up, and made new with innumerable techniques. Classic glitch beats break up soothing dueling guitars while widely sought after guitar tones give shredding cred, all while expressing a deft compositional skill. Surprise vocals on the haunting “Touching Down” ensure that Summer of Glaciers is always one or two steps above the bar. This variety of timbres is the glue that holds together the disparate yet intriguing compositions of Concentric.

It is no wonder it took a year to complete Concentric. It is as if every note was toiled over, every turn of the gain knob deliberated, every patch auditioned and auditioned again until just the right tone/note/texture combination was accomplished. While perhaps some songs (“Cartography”) may not be quite as up to the same standard as others, there is always some element that manages to stand out. This is an excellent album of accessible experimentation and personal exploration/accomplishment.

by: The Silent Ballet: Greg Norte