Search - Laeto :: Make Us Mild

One to watch

Cameron | Kilmarnock, Scotland | 06/21/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"You can have all the power and noise in the world but if it isn't controlled and focused you may as well turn up the amplifiers, lean the guitars strategically against them and let the laws of physics do the rest. Laeto demonstrate a sense of control and craft of arrangement you would think beyond a band so young and sound both powerful and noisy. The first thing that strikes you about the four Dundee under-graduates is that they can really play. The guitar work and drumming while not flashy is subtly inventive, drawing you in with careful arrangements that are seldom obvious or contrived. Their debut album 'Make Us Mild' is the sound of a band that know how to unleash and reel in sound, to make it do what they want with a real energy without sounding stifled and flat. Far from relying on the quiet/loud formula, Laeto's use of surprising and sumptuous chord changes in tandem with their shift of dynamics create intricate and beautiful instrumentals with an edge that reward and repay close attention. A few of the songs may be slightly over long in duration but Laeto sound like a band pushing themselves and like an early U2 (which much of this album sounds like) they appear to be a band who strive to develop and become better musicians. They seem dogged by constant comparisons to both fellow Scots Mogwai and Slint (a band that as soon as you make a guitar based instrumental record you automatically get compared to with a regularity akin to ark builders and Noah) to the extent their website has a reference count for these two bands in the review section (I just scored two points!) but Laeto have a distinct enough sound to emerge as band in their own right despite some common ground and the appearance of Mogwai's Barry Burns on one track. The potential shown here is considerable and you can only think they will progress and get better. Laeto is the sound of a band that deserves to be going places. The laws of physics just got a partner in crime."