Album Review: We All Want To - Come Up Invisible

Beginning with the seven-plus minute epic number Ramp Up The Bleeding, the second album from Brisbane's We All Want To is incredibly ambitious. It starts with some ambient field recordings before the song itself cracks in – frontman Tim Steward's delivery of the train of thought of musings is punchy and deliberate. After about three minutes, loops of guitars and background vocals start to roll out and form a new song which barrels along until the whole thing builds to a critical mass and undoes itself.

While it's the furthest exploration of this style of production on the record, it's indicative of how the album was put together. Ex-Screamfeeder guitarist Darke Mudge works hard on the boards to bring in all the different elements together of what are essentially really simple songs, with many different ideas all competing for attention. Each song can change its entire instrumental make up several times over, sometimes within each section of the track. When Skye Staniford takes over lead vocals on We're Not Perfect, its stripped back somewhat, but there's still interesting elements like the distorted guitar that clashes with everything else. Where Sleeping Ends is one of the highlights, and the production approach has been very different, with a big wash of acoustic guitars providing the basis. Automatic features an electronic drumbeat and a multitude of patched together guitars and synthesisers flourishing the foreground.

There's an abundance of acoustic sounds, but due to the heavy treatment the loudest and most consistent presence is the heavy production that stitches everything together. It creates a very dense record which takes some digging to find the core of the songs.