Album Review: Apricot Rail - Quarrels

The Australian post-rock scene is hardly blowing up right now, but with locals sleepmakeswaves only gaining popularity, it makes sense that other instrumental guitar rock bands would spring up and release records. Apricot Rail are such a band.

Quarrels is the second record from this Western Australian six-piece, following on some three-and-a-half years after their moderately acclaimed, moderately successful self-titled debut. Opening track and lead single Basket Press sums up the band's approach to songwriting better than any other individual track – with relatively mellow, shimmering guitar being the driving force for the percussion and flute they play around before heaviness and a harder rocking attitude becomes sonically necessary.

It becomes obvious very quickly that this approach, unfortunately, is the group's bread and butter. The whole album is relatively mellow and straightforward, even fun, but Australiana highlight Surry Hills blends into the album's folds a little too easily. The more electronic and sample-inspired Ibis Snowstorm stands out for its relative weirdness when compared to the rest of the album.

There's little point in remarking on the irony of this sort of music being still dubbed 'post-rock', implying there is anything forward thinking about it. Quarrels is an album of decade-old sounds – when Explosions In The Sky were still, well, exploding – but it's done too well to ignore. The group eschews the standard 'build up to a crescendo' approach so many other bands fall into, but instead we are left with 12 tracks that never quite go where they can; the music is not relaxing, hard-edged or experimental enough to be remarkable on its own merits. But for what it is, Quarrels is still a commendable and worthwhile instrumental rock album.