Review
Set and Setting
Equanimity

I really enjoy how pretty “Through The Unhindered Break Of Day” is, and the idea that something so simple and borderline repetitive could somehow draw me in to Equanimity, the debut album from Florida’s Set And Setting, is a bit of a mystery until the album progresses and repeated visits with the record drive the point home; these calm and pastoral moments are the absolute best to be found on Equanimity, and during those points Set And Setting put their most interesting sounds forth, like the guitar drones of “The Fear Of Obtainment” or the piano part and string section of “New Age” (actually the strings in this song make listening worth it, particularly the way the cello works with the other instruments as it gives the song such a warm sound).

This said, I keep thinking that vocals are going to show up all over the record and keep waiting to hear some spoken or sung word something to take the music to another level because there are so many bands doing the post rock thing at this point, it is easy to get drowned out in the sea of instrumental music; not that the music needs vocals, but the song arrangements of Equanimity build in such ways that it feels like either vocals are going to come or the “heavy” part is going to hit and more often than not the production of the album sounds more like guitarist and bassist just turn on distortion rather than the part actually being heavy.

Equanimity is really strange for me because there is some cool stuff that is going on in the music (like I said, I love the use of strings on the record), but the things that I love about what Set And Setting is doing does not seem to be their “core” modus operandi (neither of the string players nor the pianist are members of the band); that is not to say that the rest of the album is forgettable because this group have skill, instead, I think with time and more , they have a chance figure out how to set themselves apart from the post rock pack. In the meantime, give this a spin if you are heavy disciples of post rock because Equanimity has some cool moments that might just give you chills.