White Lion Parade and The ‘Cloudlines’ EP.
White Lion Parade – Bristol, England, United Kingdom.
It’s been a while since they have been so but White Lion Parade have been busy these past six months. A new drummer, live shows and now a new six track release taking their already fully immersive, and sonically all encompassing melodic depth further than thought possible.
So, if White Lion Parade are a band you were previously unaware of, they are both as black and white as they are complicated and hard to pin-down. Taking the soaring guitar tones and creschendo-led riffs from ambient and at times the more progressive end of Post-Rock, the weight and cathartic riffs from its harder sibling Post-Metal and the emotively insightful vocals and lyrics from Post-Hardcore, all topped off with just a twinkle of (twinkly) Math-Rock, the band are very much their own.
Cloudlines very much takes a limited but stellar back catalogue truly forward from the ambient intro ‘Prevailing Winds’ onto the soaring and melodic but still jagged and raw ‘Meta’. WLP take the elongated instrumentation from the above genre-bases and utilise them well-enough but it also must be said that they would be nothing without their emotive and vocal-dominated approach to match said stellar musical backing. The band are not fast and they are not gratuitously heavy either and in ‘Meta’ they find the perfect balance.
‘Arctic Winds’ cuts the duration and the intensity where it builds and builds to a mid-point where a softer, distant vocal can be heard as the Math-Rock-esque guitars create such an atmosphere that if you feel impressed at this point, you will want to see it all live for it to capture you further. ‘Arctic Winds’ flows perfectly into the eponymous ‘Cloudline’ where the band cross Post-Rock instrumentals in the verses, again in near perfect harmony with their soft emotive vocals followed by just enough weight to still appeal to all those Post-Rock-centrics as much as those after a little more dirge to their progressive music.
‘Cloudlines’ toys with the band’s heavier tendencies alongside the signature screams so enjoyable on their previous two releases adding whole other level of immersion. There is no wonder into how the band have shared bills with those considerably detached from their array chosen genres and “pulled it off” seamlessly.
‘Illuminate’ continues the path of the “short-long-short-long-short-long” track list with another vocal-led sombre number before the closing ‘Hounds’ begins ominously and with a very foreboding and indeed very satisfying heaviness. ‘Hounds’ is the longest on this this release and in its closing of Cloudlines couldn’t do a better job.
Cloudlines is an EP that although you could say I have written a fair word-count on, at the same time what I have said is limited for an EP so immersive is hard to describe in the best way. Enjoy the closing part of ‘Hounds’ where the band are at their best and for the love of all things underground music, go and see White Lion Parade live.
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