I was completely bowled over by the first two releases I reviewed from Since Torino – ‘Snow’ and ‘Everything Else’. Well, I say bowled over but it’s more honest to say I fell deeply in love with them. The same is the case with ‘portree. 1992’; the first trak to be released from the band’s upcoming EP.
Like the first two releases ‘portree. 1992’ can’t be put into any straightforward musical genre; and this in itself is something to be loved, I guess you might say that it has elements of Emo, but then again it equally has elements of Jazz. Somehow it feels close to Radiohead, except it’s not as dense sounding as that comparison might give the impression.
The thing is that me groping around blindly for some sort of musical comparison is not the important thing, the important thing is how it sounds as a whole. And to put this into a phrase would be to say it burns with an emotional intensity that is almost too much to take.
It’s slow, achingly beautifully slow. There’s a growling guitar but it’s way back in the mix. There’s a bittersweet sounding guitar that plays over this. And then there’s inventive sparse as you want drums that weave through this. But there is also a vocal that I can only describe as a drawling whisper that sings words you have to listen to very very closely to hear’ words that even you don’t hear them well to get what the song is about have an intense emotional impact on you. One is aware that something of great significance must have happened in the town of Portree in 1992, and whatever that was is deeply deeply personal. To me it’s a song about loss. And I feel this through the music as much as the vocal.
And yes, if you have to know the song does build to something but it isn’t the guitar fest you might assume. It’s actually a horn, And this, unexpectedly as it may be, is just so right it reaches in and twists your heartstrings. No-one would be upset it you shed a tear ar this point in the song. I’m not afraid to admit I did.
‘portree. 1992’ is achingly beautiful. It sounds incredible. It burns with a fragile emotional intensity that leaves you in bits, but you can’t help but want to hear it again.
The info
The upcoming EP is called ‘a long night down to calgary’, and the band wrote, recorded and produced it over the past year. It’s a six track soft-concept record, and will be released in February 2025.
