I have mixed feelings about this band. Aerogramme live remind me of nothing so much as grunge mongers with their too-obvious, soft-loud dynamics. Their set opening for the Delgados was frightfully cartoonish - four middle-aged, grizzly men tinkling and whimpering all feyly one moment and thrashing, pounding, and screaming wildly the next. (Their Scottish accents were delightful, though.) This album is more bearable in that a couple of the tracks are almost sublime (which, I think is their aim) in their heaviosity (which I think is their real forte). (Does this make me a headbanger?) Here are some good tracks:
1. Right off, a couple of bass notes and then an avalanche of power
4. Here, somehow, it works that they start heavy, step it down for almost the duration, and finish insanely strong
5. The contrapuntal piano figure during the power-chording lends this a more desperate and unusual aspect
6. An attractive guitar filigree rescues this one from mediocrity