Review: Telepathy ‘Transmissions’

Looking back over my time with British-based post-rock quartet Telepathy, it seems more than a little surreal. The week after the world was thrown into chaos in late March 2020 by stay-at-home orders, uncertain of when we would be able to see family and friends.

Added to which I was consigned to work solo, whilst my team were furloughed, in the unfamiliar confines of the rental house I was living in, post-separation from the mother of my children, and people were going ape shit over toilet roll and flour. The result of this was total immersion in work and music became my refuge, or rather became even more of a refuge.

At this heightened time of paranoia and isolation, Telepathy released their third full-length album, Burn Embrace. Seemingly tailor-made for the end times we were facing, the scything and apocalyptic instrumental soundscapes drew in elements of black metal thunder, machine-gunning riffs and rising shoegaze light melodies. It created a sonic experience that resonated through all the external noise and blocked out the hypocritical mantra of Hands-Face-Space that the UK’s tousle headed overlord decreed should work for thee, but not for me.

When the world began to get back to normal, Telepathy would rightly be able to take this abrasive slab of atmospheric doom to sold-out audiences across the UK and Europe, such was the connection it helped them cement since their formation in 2011.

After four years of ‘introspection, experimentation and revitalisation’, Telepathy have returned with Transmissions, an hour of music that seeks to shift beyond the label of instrumental metal to create cinematic and alien soundscapes that tell an emotional narrative.

After a sample of Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski’s first radio broadcast, Oath kicks off Transmissions with a crunching, stately riff. The head-nodding rhythm gives way to a melodic drift with bobbling electronics that lead to jackhammer strikes and dramatic, dynamic pauses. Barely audible voices surface fleetingly as the heady post-metal psych builds to thunderous drums.

Transitioning from the fade, Augury gives the album a sense of continuation as the light arpeggios create a playful and mellower passage that gives the listener an ebb and flow. Pausing for isolated, strummed guitar in the middle, thoughtful picking and another sample declaring ‘the answer lies in the future’ adds a textured nuanced that Telepathy have excelled at previously, although it feels like they have upped their game further, and the scope of the music over the seven-track epic has become more cinematic than previous efforts.

Knife Edge Effect warps with samples and effects before the futuristic, stuttering electronics wash back and forth with crackling false starts that grow into a primitive pulse and clashing industrial stamp. The poise and command with which the band switches through the gears and introduces further layers is effortless as, once more, sampled voices chant with an incomprehensible marching mantra that comes to an abrupt stop.

a masterpiece of peaks and troughs that pull you into a sense of wonder and optimism whilst reminding you of stark realities…

Releasing the tension that has built, Tears In Fibre builds slowly into glacial, soaring harmonies that are equal parts Tool, deftones and Vaneglis as they channel the expressive nature of human introspection through their sonic landscapes. This track in particular feels like it shares a kindred spirit with Cult of Luna’s acclaimed Vertikal album, with the voiceless emotion attached to the epic rise and fall that strikes a lingering tone. The second longest-running piece on Transmissons, coming in the centre of the album, gives a sense of the narrative arc the band is creating.

Written as a missive to celebrate the art of living and to serve as a reminder and warning about forgetting the lessons of the past feels incredibly on the nose given the global news cycle, but the band walk a balanced line between sombre, dark passages of moody reflection and hopeful, uplifting moments of synthwave as fragile as a breath.

A Silent Bridge reprises the radio broadcast with soothing tones in a short interlude that forms a bridge to the mammoth, almost title track, End Transmission. The penultimate, towering opus returns Telepathy to the bombastic pomp and circumstances of earlier. Almost a narrative journey within itself, it begins with the hard-hitting angular riffing and chug of their more metal tendencies before it twists into a progressive, high-tech maelstrom that snaps and pounds until that sweet sensation of relief erupts in glorious fashion.

This chapter calls back to the general theme of the album, reintroducing samples as it moves through the emotional call and response that ends on a floating synth overlayed with commentary on the original broadcast. Forming an observation of society, bemoaning the disappearance of history but encouraging the search for the brilliance and inspiration that can lie within the universe.

The final sign-off of Home brims with upbeat krautrock and offers a light, vibrant, hopeful conclusion like a happily-ever-after. Even following the mid-track breakdown, with the emergence of grinding guitars and the crashing of drums, it still feels more akin a rocket blasting off for the serenity of space. It dissolves into radio bleeps, floating electronics and the obligatory sample to finish.

Telepathy have long been spoken about with reverence from those in the know and have often felt in the shadows of their more celebrated peers like Russian Circles or even new labelmates The Ocean, despite being capable of scaling the same lofty heights of thought-provoking post-metal. The ability to connect with an audience, despite the lack of hand-holding lyrics to guide you, is part of their existential appeal.

Here, the band has created a masterpiece of peaks and troughs that pull you into a sense of wonder and optimism whilst reminding you of stark realities. To be able to hold the listener in that moment and communicate agnostically in a universal language is a skill that the band have long possessed, however, with Transmissions, they have raised the bar, not only for themselves but to anyone who looks to inhabit the same sphere. Simply stunning.

Label: Pelagic Records
Band Links: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Scribed by: Mark Hunt-Bryden