couch

Figur 5

Although it's taken a few albums to get there, German four-piece Couch have finally ended up at their spiritual home of Morr Music for new release 'Figur 5'. The fifth LP in their eleven-year career sees Couch cementing the sound which defined their earlier releases; wherein a sanded-down take on post-rock is filtered through a spectrum of styles and influences to produce a concentrated batch of brittle instrumentation. The kind of post-rock that gets you stomping around town with visions of scarred-skies and epoch-lashed vistas, 'Figur 5' sees Couch - MS John Soda's Stefanie Bohm (keyboards), Thomas Geltinger (drums), Michael Heilrath (bass) and Jurgen Soder (guitar) - fizzing with a renewed energy that invites comparisons with the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky (albeit viewed through a Slowdive affiliated kaleidoscope...). Although sharing members with the delectable Ms. John Soda, Couch boast a much brusquer sound that (whilst certainly of the same lineage) chooses to leave the creases on show and shun the electronically sanded oeuvre of the Soda. Opening with 'Gegen Alles Bereit', Couch somersault sky-wards on a swirling coalition of chiming guitars, 50ft atmospherics and joyous solipsism - wherein the cinematic genre-tag looming loud and proud, before 'Zwei Streifen In Blau' successfully plumbs a similar aural-well to that of Radiohead's 'Kid A', 'Blinde Zeichen' ups the digitalis for a striking fusion of machines and instrumentation, whilst album closer 'Lässt Nicht Nach' delivers a reedy (yet muscular) blast of soft-hearted polemic.