U.S. Christmas – The Valley Path

site | label | buy

Following successful 2010 release Run Thick In The Night, North Carolina’s U.S. Christmas are now putting out their third record in four years, which for music so inventive, is an incredible work-rate. The back cover has no tracklist, and that is because The Valley Path is a single, 39-minute track of psychedelic, melodic drone. It’s music which should feature in the spralling scenes of deserted cities in zombie movies, packed with haunting vocals, noisy guitar solos and atmospheric, repetative riffs. The track is nothing short of mesmerising. There are lulls, of course, particularly around the 10/12-minute mark, but other passages are so good they comfortably make up for it. Hit a quarter of an hour and the gradual build-up really takes a hold. At the half-way point, on around 20 minutes, it has faded almost to silence, and on 21 it starts up again like a separate piece, linked by the finest of threads to the first half. The final 15 minutes loops back to the opening 10, but builds up to a much bigger creschendo by the end, with a motif echoing part of Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s Free Bird in the last 5 minutes, taking just 30 seconds of feedback melody to fade to nothing at the close. Amazingly complex in its simplicity at times, The Valley Path is one of the most engaging pieces of what by rights should be background music ever committed to plastic.

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Post Rock/Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, U.S. Christmas