Review
A Whisper In The Noise
To Forget

The 2 piece "band" A Whisper In The Noise has been kicking around for the better part of the 2000's playing a style of folk that contains elements of shoegaze, dream pop, and ambient electronics. So one may come to the conclusion that the band has an identity crisis of sorts with such a striking mix of sounds. Well it would be too simple to deny the band their efforts.

The band seems pretty set in their ways on this record. They consistently start with a buzz and end with a whisper seemingly doing everything they can to embody their band name. The opening title track starts with said buzz. This builds into a melange of strings, bells and light. distant drum work. Over the course of 5 minutes this song builds but never quite seems to have a climax instead seeming like a long intro to the record.

The songs seem to follow this lead building an atmosphere but doing very little to cash in on whatever power they build. That may be the point in reality as the band doesn't really seem interested in rocking out as much as being somewhat peaceful and melancholy at the same time. This works rather well most of the time as the dual male/female vocals create a calm choir like atmosphere when they are used. More so than not these vocals get overtaken by the other things in the mix.

The production is really clean but seems less that focused many times. At points the vocals take center stage and as mentioned it creates a soothing yet sad atmosphere. Where this goes wrong is the strings always seem to take precedence within the mix of the songs. This makes the effect of the vocals become overshadowed and nearly forgotten by the end of the song. This would be the main complaint with the record. In essence music is about creating and controlling a feeling to be able to present it to the listener. When a band fails at making the most of those cultivated moments the band and song tend to fail miserably. While there is nothing truly bad on this record there is a consistent failure to make the most of these moments and that, in itself, may be worse than outright failure.