Micheal Bearpark (electric guitars, pedals, loops, feedback, acoustic guitar, bass) just returned from touring with No-man (a side project of Bass Communion and Porcupine Tree) is together with Andrew Ostler (synthesizers, programming) and Andrew Booker on drum Darkroom, a project in which the guitar plays the all dominant role. Burning Shed calls this 'ambient stadium rock', which I though was very funny, but once I played the album, I thought it was also an appropriate term. Crazy as it may sound. Darkroom seem to combine all things guitar from all decades of popular music. Shoegazing, cosmic music, The Shadows, and post rock. Just to name a few. The guitar swells and swells, held together by crazy electronics and pounding drums. I can picture them in a stadium and 'The Valley Of Ten Thousand Smokes', the start of the CD, could be a great opening tune for the show. A 4/4 rhythm and lots of sustaining guitar sounds. Lengthy krauty exercusions in music, that sound by all means 'retro'. Music to be played loud, which seems also a bit odd for an ambient production, but this can have it. Its all a bit much this one, no matter how much I like it, its simply a bit too much. Perhaps in that stadium I would think otherwise, but here at home I thought half of this would have been great. Think F/i or Vocokesh on a more ambient trip.

- FdW

Full review here

Tags: SOTNMS