Record Review // TLVS "Beauty In The Ghost" (Harding Street Assembly Lab)

https://tlvs.bandcamp.com/album/hsal-59-beauty-in-the-ghost

The sound of TLVS is mostly instrumental mood to set the tone in a post rock sort of way.  Somewhere between The Cancer Conspiracy and Explosions In The Sky, TLVS creates these landscapes with these sounds which can be calm but also overpowering.   There are many times when these songs just seem so triumphant, as if we have just won a war and come out on the other side as the victor.

With a few different audio clips during the songs, there is also this more electronic/laser feel to the song "Rupert Rainelle", which just goes to show the range of TLVS and put them into this genre all their own.    This definitely feels like the soundtrack to some sort of film I would love to see, but at the same time this is that type of album where you can press play and begin to write your own story in an accompanying visual way.

As for stories told within these songs, I think "Fragaria Virginiana" has one of the best stories I've ever heard as it starts with someone having walked for 100 years, finds this mountain which is covered in snakes and has instruments of torture inside which are alive.   If some great artist could capture this concept as a painting or moving visual of some sort it would be quite extravagant.  

Between the lyrics and just the overall mood that this music sets, it takes you on quite the adventure.   Certainly it feels as if this music has a drive, a passion to push forward, and while listening to it you can hopefully overcome whatever obstacle is in your life that needs overcoming, but even if you've reached the top of the mountain you can always use a reminder of where you've been and how you got there.