A Brief Review Of The New Album From Infinite River (His Name Is Alive, The Detroit Cobras, Universal Indians)

Sometimes it's all about texture. The mood of a piece is as affecting as a guitar solo, or a vocal performance. The music of Infinite River is a whole mood. It's also music that's full of nuance, and an enveloping sense of (you guessed it) texture.

Infinite River is Warren Defever (His Name is Alive), Gretchen Gonzales (Universal Indians), and Joey Mazzola (The Detroit Cobras), and the band's latest is called Prequel. The album contains six tracks with no title beyond their track number which, when combined, together make up an engrossing sonic journey. The first track, the longest here, rides what sound like treated violins but which are likely guitars over a slowly pulsing backing. There's nothing showy about this, and nothing particularly abrasive either, making the whole thing borderline hypnotic. Elsewhere, "Track 3" is anchored around some fiery, Fripp-y guitar-work, even as the other instruments gently push things forward. The fourth track here is my favorite, given the sitar-ish line running through it, and the heartbeat-like beat giving the selection a rhythmic current, even as "Track 6" puts forward a sound not entirely unlike that of some recent Yo La Tengo numbers, or Meddle-era Floyd. The piece has a faintly traditional momentum that's vaguely -- and I mean vaguely -- anchored in a familiar rock form, even if ths composition is, like everything here, wonderfully of its own genre.

Call this ambient or post-rock, or whatever you like, but Prequel is thoroughly engrossing. Fans of some of His Name is Alive's recently-unearthed tape ops will find lots of this compelling, even though there's a warmth here that's at odds with some of Defever's more spectral experiments. The trio, with additional percussive help from Steve Nistor (studio drumming for Daniel Lanois and Sparks, among others), reaches a contemplative pitch and doesn't let go of it. This album isn't the drone rock as you might imagine, despite the names here. With the texture of the whole thing feeling very welcoming, Prequel is one of the most compelling records of this sort I've heard in quite some time. While there's tension in the roiling dynamics underpinning these six tracks, and a vague sense of unease in some too, the entirety of this release makes up the soundtrack for an inner journey. There's space to get lost in within the grooves here, with a simplicity that causes the pieces to open and nearly swallow us.

Prequel by Infinite River is out today. More details below.

[Photo: Doug Coombe]