Review LONG DISTANCE CALLING ‘Eraser’

Germany’s post-rock powerhouse Long Distance Calling started in 2006 and since then have come an impressive way. The quartet managed to enter the hearts of their fans with sophisticated instrumentals.
What started with the debut album ‘Satellite Bay’ in 2007 became a success story that continues to the present date. These days the four guys from Münster, Germany add with ‘Eraser’ another chapter to their story with nine songs that have a lot to offer.

As on the predecessor, all songs come without vocals which does not make it easy to transfer a message with the album. However, what the band already managed to do with ‘ How Do We Want to Live? is also skillfully accomplished this time. While on the previous album it was the theme of the coexistence of mankind, it is this time the extinction of species and the slow destruction of nature and thus our livelihood.

Long Distance Calling manage to express the theme and the feelings associated with it through sounds, riffs and melodies. A good example is ‘Sloth’. The calmly held song deals with the sloth and its threat to existence. The almost melancholic sounding melodies, strengthened by the gloomy singing saxophone, set a world of feelings in motion.

While ‘Sloth’ reflects the calmer side of Long Distance Calling, it is songs like ‘Blades’ and the powerful pounding ‘Kamilah’ which show the band again from their heavier side. While the previous album had a lot of electronic elements, the four-piece is back to the power of the guitars on ‘Eraser’. It is this experimental approach to sounds that makes each album of the Münster based band an exciting journey into the world of music. Complex and yet catchy and gripping, that’s how Long Distance Calling presents itself on ‘Eraser’.

Each of the nine songs is worth listening to more than once. There is, for example, the impressive ‘Giants Leaving’, which brings the albatross to the fore. Anyone who has experienced this majestic bird live can confirm that everything that makes up the albatross has been realized with genius on ‘Giants Leaving’.

‘Blood Honey’ skillfully puts the buzzing sound of the bee into a musical context while the closing track ‘Eraser’ focuses on the human being as the cause of many ills. It is primarily humans who are responsible for the extinction of species and thus not only wipe out species, but also themselves in the end.

Long Distance Calling use their popularity to draw attention to a topic that can hardly be exceeded in importance. Everyone who is sweating this summer due to the hot and dry temperatures is slowly noticing that something is changing; and not for the good. ‘Eraser’ approaches the subject from a musical side and the fact that the record comes without lyrics allows everyone to set their own world of thoughts in motion. ‘Eraser’ is in all aspects an album that sets an antithesis to fast pace and thoughtlessness. It is also a musical masterpiece, which is exactly what the fans love the band for.