Album Review: Patterns - Waking Lines

Patterns
Waking Lines
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

Manchester quartet Patterns sort of bridge the gap between shoegaze, post-rock, dream pop, and Britpop on their debut album Waking Lines. Full of stadium ready guitars, booming drums, lush samples, and the evocative vocals of lead singer Ciaran McAuley, these tracks flow in and out of one another like a dense sweep of ocean waves. For a debut it is a remarkably assured record that shows their sound fully realized, if not as distinctive as it could be. While in the context of listening to the record as a whole, the band's vision is apparent, however, Waking Lines suffers slightly from not having any standout singles that can get more people to take a chance with the band.

Leading off with "This Haze," the chiming guitars and soaring synths envelope McAuley's voice in a dense storm of sound as it all barrels forth towards the skyscraping chorus,



Animal Collective-style chanted lyrics rise and fall over the scrawling guitars and atmospheric keyboards of "Blood,"



while moodier and edgier keyboards take over "Our Ego," blending seamlessly into the mix of lush guitars and driving rhythms.



Throughout Waking Lines, motifs appear and reappear, patterns (pun not intended, well, perhaps slightly intended) reveal themselves and evolve over the course of the record. These patterns do have the tendency to make each track bleed into the next, as if the flow of the record is a variation on a theme. While listening to the record as a whole it goes by effortlessly, but like a house of cards, should you take one out of sequence and/or context, the beautiful structure falls. But there is a lot here to recommend. From the title track, which climbs from chiming keyboards and soft focus vocals into a stomping, percussion heavy, guitar rave-up;



the lurching and swooning "Wrong Two Worlds;"



and the spiky guitar shards that punctuate the epic closing track "Climbing Out," as McAuley's vocals head upwards into the stratosphere.

Waking Lines is a solid debut from this talented Manchester quintet. The base here is solid, they just need to stretch out a little bit to make their sound a little more distinct. Perhaps a little more edge to the electronics and percussion might help them jump to the next level. Small issues aside, you could do a lot worse than spending your time in this very lush musical world.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.