A softer light around familiar shadows
Zelienople emerge from Chicago's wide-ranging experimental scene with a patient, carefully reduced sound. Across their work, Mike Weis, Matt Christensen and Brian Harding have made room for bass, saxophone, guitar, voice and percussion without forcing any element to the front.
The World Is a House on Fire carries that approach into a lighter, more open register. The band retain the low-slung atmosphere associated with earlier records, but the arrangements move with more air around them. Each track settles gradually rather than arriving with a fixed shape.
On the opening piece, soft percussion supports drifting synthesizer and organ tones. Christensen's vocal sits inside the arrangement rather than above it, while the guitar and sustained tones keep the music suspended between distant song form and slow-moving drone.
The result is an understated record with a long after-effect: delicate in its materials, unhurried in its pacing and attentive to the texture left behind when conventional pop structure is allowed to thin out.
