Hoofless - Ad Nauseam (2022)

Although the Salt Lake City's Hoofless advertise their own music as "chamber punk", there's not much of the chamber subtlety here. The band is really a small orchestra with instruments such as cello and trumpets and what they do can probably be described as neoclassical post-rock. Which I love. Their second ever album Ad Nauseam is so good, one could listen to it over and over again without any side effects (regardless of what the title suggests).

While the orchestral nature of their music obviously adds tons of grandeur, it is composed in such a way as to evoke the emotions of nervousness and anxiety, there's more of the dark and heavy than any other feeling here. And as such, in many parts, the slow but steady pace and the presence of trumpets make me think of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and it's pretty clear that the Canadians were a big influence on the American band. While the neoclassical instruments play vital role throughout the whole album, the vocals only appear later, in Rise, but for a major role, they have to wait til the very end and the most lyrical and, yes, chamber pop-like, And This Too, Again and Again.

There are more calmer moments here as well. The first part of 9 to 7 sounds a lot like a sunny weather after a storm would sound like with a lot of shiny and soft sounds. However, as one could guess, it mainly serves as an introduction to another acoustic storm. Still, the loudness and noise here are introduced skill- and tastefully, only where they matter the most. 

Ad Nauseam costs 1 USD.

Check: Doubting

Country: Utah, US

Genre: orchestral post-rock

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