My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go

Qualitative changes in the sounding of Aereogramme

In Glasgow, at the end of 90s, the years of unrestrained music of American indie rock groups, Craig B and Campbell McNeil established the band Aereogramme. The main idea of their music was “making the intensive sounds, be it intensive rage or intensive tenderness”. Having released a pair of bright singles in 1999 on their own label Babi-Yaga, they have toured throughout the year with such groups as Low and Snow Patrol. In 2000, Aereogramme made a contract with Chemikal Underground and one year later released their debut full-length record, A Story In White. Over six years their laborious work, they would like to present to the audience their third work. My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go doesn't quite abandon the directions taken on 2004's Seclusion EP or the previous year's full-length, psych-metallic Sleep And Release - the overall extravagance remains, and Aereogramme still reaches for the sky - but it does signal a turn toward a more thoughtful, artistically ambitious sound than before. It doesn’t give a cause for thinking that today Aereogramme’s music has penchant for just simple romantic ballads about love, vice versa, the group now catapults out of its minor-league status and becomes to sing more deep, full of life sense, songs. Only half-a-dozen years earlier, on their 2001 debut A Story In White, Aereogramme was weighted down with elephantine guitars, bloated, plodding rhythms and dark music. Since that time, many things have changed and their last work My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go is awash in opulent strings, dramatic keyboards and multi-layered vocals.

All new is just a good forgotten and changing old things

My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go presents all kinds of new sounds from Aereogramme, and some things make a return in more subtle ways. The electronic keyboard style finds itself lending atmospheric effect on The Running Man. The pounding, simple riffs that revolved around downbeats and heavy bass drum kicks are toned down, but still present, more noticeably in the hardest song on the album Living Backwards. The new sound doesn’t sound new, it sounds as though the band has always done it and they’ve refined their formula to the point of perfection. The production on this album is flawless, everything is crystal clear and even in the album’s busiest moments, and everything can be heard in the light and spontaneous style. Dynamic effects on the album My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go, although the album never reaches Aereogramme’s old heaviness, are better than ever. Conscious Life For Coma Boy represents a great summary of the album’s sound. It begins with delay guitar and some great falsetto from Craig B. The album immediately shows that something new is here, through the chord progression, the style of Craig’s singing, and the instrumentation. Piano sounds and a great French horn section make their main appearance on Trenches. The chords laid out by the French horns, played with incredible musicality; make an inspiring soundtrack to any movie. As the song progresses, more instruments add in, with the piano playing a more prominent part throughout. Nightmares give the strings their full feature, with an epic yet simple riff that sounds all too familiar, mixed with other pizzicato strings behind it. Despite how great the musicianship the album is, what makes the album so fantastic is the precision of the production on the album. Everything on the album was meant to happen; nothing is tentative.

Elements of everything from Radiohead to Sigur Ros

Something tells here that this is not the album Aereogramme had in their minds when they went into the recording studio. Something had to give and the album held back several times. First, and most important, frontman Craig B suffered serious problems with his voice and throat, forcing the band to take time off from both recording and touring. The instrumental end of Aereogramme needed to accommodate to Craig’s new cripple, so instead of toning things down and making their music quieter and simpler, they made it more complex and gave it a brand new voice. Then, despite the album being ready at last and even released in Japan in November, it's only being put on the shelves this month in the UK because of problems with their label Chemikal Underground. However, Aereogramme is back with their first full-length in 4 years, but it is something brand new and completely unexpected. My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go has a distinct cinematic theme from the outset, with its very title taken from the novel of The Exorcist. Craig B elaborated the history of some compositions: “A Life Worth Living is meant to evoke the idea of a chase scene in a film, Trenches is meant to evoke the idea of World War. [Film] has always been an interest as much as music for us. We just made it; the cinematic album we wanted to do.” On the record, you can find the elements of everything from Radiohead to Sigur Ros and even the shimmering beauty of the Cocteau Twins. Aereogramme has found a new low in dynamic level, and they’ve found their high in adding more instruments and more melodic activity.