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New British label Resonant have turned to Canada in search of a band worthy of kick-starting their album catalogue. With the recommendation of pace-setters Constellation, Kepler - who roam similarly barren landscapes to their Canadian cousins - are a forlorn quartet whose muted approach earned them the sub-category 'whisper-core' from one US journalist. Whilst the extended instrumental passages of the album's centrepiece Upper Canada Fight Song recall the elegance of Red House Painters and Low, it is the brooding keyboard drones and belated assault of The Changing Light at Sandover that pulls Kepler's sound into the world of Slint and Mogwai, the addition of Jonathan Georgekish-Watt's mumbled, indifferent vocal also drawing comparisons to Bill Callahan, particularly on the very Smog-like Lighthouse. Considered and economic in its instrumentation, the album's hypnotic hold derives from the tension created by unresolved progressions and the ever-present threat of the crash.

Matt Dornan
CWAS #7 - Spring 2001

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