Tides Resurface

Ok, quick! List three heavy, slow, and instrumental or mostly instrumental bands. Got your listI bet most lists have Isis, Pelican, and Neurosis on them. Or the too often used joke name combinations of the above bands which was neither funny nor clever in the first place. Just as there are more fish in the sea for the broken hearted, or life after retirement for the middle aged, so too are there other bands of this style to pay attention to besides the ones listed above. Not only are there plenty of existing bands out there that do the doom/ambient/slow/heavy thing arguably better than the above bands, but there are also many new bands that should be acknowledged that share similar stylistic qualities. Allow me to introduce you to Tides, one such band that has released a debut album in this vein that deserves immediate attention. Just to get the ball rolling, I'm not going to compare Tides to Isis, Neurosis, or Pelican because, while others might disagree, I don't think they sound enough like them to warrant direct comparisons. Furthermore, I think that there are more similarities to other bands of this style that should be mentioned instead. Tides debut is a powerful and well done three-piece demonstration of doomy/ambient instrumental rock. Some moments are exceedingly heavy and distorted while others are pristine, clear, and atmospheric. The heavier moments tend to shift towards a Yob style of riff phrasing, while more stoner rock elements akin to bands like the Hidden Hand are also apparent at times. Tides also exhibits a nice ability to transition between the heavier and softer moments, similar to Mouth of the Architect. The softer moments are more indicative of Red Sparowes than anything else, but less heavy bands also come to mind, such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky. The six tracks spanning Tides' debut album alternate between long and short structures. Tides definitely requires some semblance of an attention span, which might turn away some listeners. One ability of great doom/ambient bands with long song structures is that at the end of an eleven minute track you feel like you've only listened for a few minutes. Being a debut, Tides does not seem to have grasped this yet, and some moments of the songs seem to drag. However, fans of this type of music should be able to ignore this drawback when weighed against the overall effectiveness of the album. Bottom Line: If you are fans of doom/ambient/stoner rock, you should like this. If you are not, you know who you are, and this is probably not for you. If this debut is any indication of what Tides is capable of, then future releases are surely destined to place them in the elite of bands of this style.