Were it nothing but the title song alone, Landing's Wave Lair would have still made a pretty strong impression on me. Prodding curiously at the fabric of pop songwriting, Landing finds an experimentalism in a new style fit to augment its hazy sentimentality. With drummer Daron Gardner on bass, the band turns to drum machines for rhythm and finds direction in heady drone and blurry passages of sedate dream pop. It also happens that the rest of the material on this album is solid as well, finding a few glimpses of brilliance in familiar forms.
It seems disingenuous to see Wave Lair's first three songs as a build up to the titular 19 minute opus, as each of them makes small revelatory steps in oft-tread musical ground. "Patterns" plays up a bubbly circular arpeggio over post-punk drum loops and breathy vocals singing of nonessential terrestrial topics. A simplistic set of chord changes treats "Pattern" to a vaguely existential resolve, like being confined to a beach for an afternoon to think things through. "Resonance" bounces back in a deliberate counterpoint, its slow aggregate of momentum suddenly offset by an anticlimactic, bitcrushed whirr. "Cover Bare Arms" is the weakest moment in the album, but still finds its place as an oddly stringent bit of placid, sullen pop.
I cannot express how much I adore "Wave Lair," however. I am someone with a giddy affinity for well-executed, exceptionally long pieces of music, and "Wave Lair" hits its mark with a brittle and hypnotic aplomb. A claustrophobic drum loop, amiably thumping along like the accidental rhythms of cross country train travel sets an early precedent of propulsion. Waves of bass widen the scope slowly, reaching an implacable midrange drone. Slow synth strings oscillate in and out, panned far to one channel or the other, on a slow climb towards a point that never seems to arrive. Finally, after 9 minutes of instrumentation only, Adrienne Snow's voice enters in a pillow-talk cadence: "Our heads/twisting and turning...their heavy heads/they are stretched towards the sun." It is a simple arrangement of beautiful things, which Landing refuses to dispose of or change, and it is to their credit to be so stalwart and cocksure. "Wave Lair" isn't an "epic" in the sense of its construction; it stays sublunary and accessible, but magnificently exemplifies what the nebulous title of "drone pop" might really mean. It outshines the rest of the record and I would say it is one of the strongest things Landing has ever done, and it will eagerly find itself on repeat. It absolutely earns its run time.
The bonus track, "Cove," seems mostly an afterthought, but touches on some pleasant ideas of space and echo. I am still captivated by "Wave Lair" when I am listening through the entire album, though, and it is not likely to lose my attention soon. The style explored on this EP is a welcome change, as Landing is making some of the best music of their career. It makes for a fantastic autumn soundtrack, too.
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