Tangled Thoughts of Leaving – Yield to Despair (2015)

“That blackness, that nothingness, comes from the flood of information that I get through visual culture … This sludge is kind of the by-product of image culture and image-driven society. It’s almost like oil, it’s this kind of dirty, smelly, black thing that will require constant analytical process.”

Tangled Thoughts of Leaving have always implied darkness for me but never has that been so spacious, managed and seemingly consciously executed. The tracks breathe and stretch and develop over more than an hour of runtime. Moments of complete madness are there but more often than not the now-trademark complex flourishes of bass, drums and keys are part of a bigger surrounding ambience – one potholed with scraping abrasive noise approaching claustrophobia.

Yield to Despair is a firm statement of their ability to create these almost painfully emotive soundscapes. The decision to go the extra step to release it on double-vinyl further cements the idea that this is their postcard to their form of instrumental rock. Artist Teo Treloar’s description of the black mist that gags the scientist may well be a tangential way to start a review, but the last line is as true a description of the album as I can offer.