RANGES - Babel 2xLP (black and silver col. vinyl)

That feeling of size coupled with moments of heart-wrenching ambiance echo both the cover and the subject matter of the album really well. Babel leaves you feeling in awe like previous albums from the band but it’s also possessed of this sort of darkness, a more contemplative and brooding energy than previous releases. The hope is still there, echoing out between the notes, but it is steeped in the kind of twisted dynamics which lie in waiting for us in the original story of Babel. It is an album very much about speaking to each other attempting, like all great pieces of music, to reach out to us and speak but what it has to say might not be the crooning message of triumph we wish it to be. At the end, isn’t the myth of Babel also about hidden meanings and the folly of attempted translation? Isn’t it also about how, in our greatest achievements, lies our downfall? Perhaps what we should take from it, more than anything, the need for us to remain open to our darker urges and understand the future as it comes. Babel channels all of those emotions marvelously into its run-time proving to us, once again, that few bands in post-rock possess the emotional dexterity of Ranges.