Uppsala, Sweden’s Comprehending has long been, essentially, the music of John Pettersson as a solo artist. Solo projects are an amazing thing, often giving the audience a deeper look or different angle of the musician in question. But no matter what, it’s fun to team up with others, and this is Comprehending’s first outing with Andreas Valdna.
Valdna plays drums for the project, and you can really hear how the ‘size’ of Comprehending’s spectrum has increased with so many subtle dynamics. Big tom fills, crashing cymbals, groovy kick patterns… we rarely take the time to think about it, but solid, organic drum work often gives music a sense of vitality that programmed drums are technically able emulate, but rarely do.
Check out the lush new single “Flourish” below.
Pettersson also keeps things interesting in guitar land, with lots of different subtle textures like quick-timed delays and massive walls of reverb. Those are buzzwords you hear a lot about in theory, but don’t always see in practice – we’re often surprised by how conservative math rock guitar tones can be when they’re not wigging out completely, so to hear Comprehending really going for new tones, along with the addition of live drums, is truly rewarding.
The song starts out icy and sweet, but eventually transitions from picky, midwest-flavored math rock to crushing post-rock that takes our minds to bands like Caspian and sleepmakeswaves. Comprehending have split the difference before with these genres on bangers like “Try” and “Boreal,” but “Flourish” just might be their most cohesive, singular offering to date, and we’re looking forward to whatever happens next.