And So I Watch You From Afar

And So I Watch You From Afar have been one of the most consistent musical forces in my post rock bag of tricks and licks for years now. The cinematic thrusts and epic moisture they conjure out of my lumpy and balding body are what many would call obscene, but for those in the know, And So I Watch You From Afar are pure fucking energy.

And I don't really mean they're just energy. I mean, literally, they are fucking energy. Like, the energy needed to fuck and created by fucking. And So I Watch You From Afar are "fucking energy".

Their latest album, Heirs, is more of what I expected musically, but they've added this dimension that, whether it was there before or not I don't know, seems to have brought the guys together in the fact that they're basically scoring a movie that they can only picture right the fuck in front of us. Lacking the traditional "lead singer", when these guys all chime in on a chant only they are chanting, it's fucking electric.

You'll hear this shit all throughout the album, but on "Wasps", I'm a fucking puddle. Holy shit. This song sounds like each of the guys in And So I Watch You From Afar is riding their own fucking horse into battle, and because Irish, the war drums goad them into connecting on a war cry, AND THEN ALL OF THE CLIFFS AROUND THEM CRUMBLE AND WOMEN JUST START RIPPING OFF THEIR CLOTHES (and laundering them in slow motion). By 1:58 I'm sweating, but by 2:11, I HAVE REMOVED EVERY PIECE OF SKIN FROM MY LUMPY BODY AND AM WAVING IT AROUND MY HEAD LIKE A HELICOPTER. I wouldn't think it possible to have another And So I Watch You From Afar track make me want to skin myself, but alas, it hath happened again on this very album.

The first few times I listened to "Fucking Lifer", I was convinced that I had a write a letter to my congressman asking them to force And So I Watch You From Afar and the band Holy Fuck to tour together and consider playing this fucking song together at the end of each night. The hip hop on this fucking song is making me want to cut up my own NBA highlight reel and splice in shots of me tossing dirty clothes into the galdarn warshing machine. Towards the last half of the track, as expected, the shit takes a turn for the majestic and I'm wearing a robe I didn't know I owned and holding my hands together in prayer praying the prayer of the prayerful.

"Animal Ghosts" is perhaps the song I expected the most from And So I Watch You From Afar on this album. It takes all of their video game-esque noodling and guitar effects over a simply impossible to mimic guitar lick and turns it into a fucking soundtrack that'll not just make the hairs on your arms stand straight up, it'll fucking YANK those hairs straight the fuck up, straight the fuck up. The basic sung "aaaaaaahhhhh"'s somehow complement the impossible guitar work and you're left with the climax to your own internal struggle, but in this movie, you get the ice cream sundae bro. Two cherries bro.

In addition to loving the balls off of And So I Watch You From Afar and the album Heirs, I have come to appreciate the fact that each of their songs isn't nine fucking minutes long. You've got a few over 6, but none over 8, and the rest are perfectly sized between 2 and 5 minutes. What does that mean? It means there's no drawn out build ups, there's just pure fucking balls being slapped against your fucking forehead over and over and over and over, and when the song does take longer than 5 minutes, it feels like it's supposed to be longer than 5 minutes. It isn't lengthy just because post rock is notorious for that shit. Rather than bragging on length and size, And So I Watch You From Afar are totes focusing our attention on their girth.

And So I Watch You From Afar. Girth. BUY THIS ALBUM IMMEDIATELY.