Windsor for the Derby are like a breath of fresh air. Literally. Taking the world of post rock and making it even more post, this experimental group hovers around the ether and floats around on breezes droning about wherever they may roam. Their latest album, Against Loveis a testament to that as the album started out as a seemingly endless list of drones and loops inspired by their earlier works. Eventually giving several of these sounds and atmospheres a voice and mixing them together with enough ambience to make Brian Eno blush, the band wound up with Against Love.
Quiet, light, and unobtrusive, Windsor for the Derby go on in the background of your mind and sway in the breeze as if they were weightless and transparent. They're an incredible band that barely raise their voices and make themselves known, and for years that has been their charm. Yeah, they're post rock but they bring the element of lyrical beauty to their material giving it further depth in a never ending quest to be heard by something, anything. Gently strummed guitars, sighed vocals, and barely beat drums swirl around creating a cloudy calliope of sound that's absolutely gorgeous. Ok, so it's barely audible because of just how un-obtrusive they are but if you sit and pay attention, Against Love reveals its beauty one song at a time and it will leave you in awe.
Songs like "Queen of the Sun," and "Autumn Song," take loops into infinity but swirl lazy, dozed off vocals around swooshy guitars to create an atmospheric journey to the center of your mind. It's an absolutely gorgeous song that crawls along at a snail's pace and hypnotizes you into submission using repetition as a weapon. Then there are the ambient songs that make up the rest of Against Love; these instrumental works sound so delicate and fragile that you'll worry they might just shatter somewhere between your player and ears. It's hauntingly superb stuff that helps your imagination set the sights and scenes that go along with the titles. From, "Singer 1968," to "Moon Shadows," Windsor for the Derby clearly know how to set mood and tone with a very few notes and they do this stunningly well.
Against Love isn't exactly the feel good hit of the summer, but it is an awesome record nonetheless. Quiet, inconspicuous, and subdued beyond the definition of subdued, Against Love works it's charms slowly and meekly, eventually wearing you down enough so that you can't help but remember the world that Windsor for the Derby have created. It's a world worth letting your imagination run wild and they do an excellent job of world building using nothing but musical notes.
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