RE:UP review of Tomorrow Grieves Today

RE:UP
Oct 2006

There is somewhat of an ego-stroke that comes from listening to a great album when it takes you to all the places you expected to go. With each rhythmic change and chord progression on the album you think to yourself, "I knew this was coming! I am sooo good!" and the songs play on, continuing to exalt your refined musical wisdom with each passing second. Occasionally, though, an album like Tomorrow Grieves Today comes along and slaps your ego across the face like it was its mama and leaves you standing there, mouth agape, wondering what the hell just happened. Spanning genres that drift through dreamy and sometimes nightmarish ambience, sci-fi villain themes, "mad scientist" experiments with electronic rock, restless synth-heavy excursions, and momentary episodes of schizophrenia, Time Promises Power have delivered a compact yet multifaceted package that takes the listener completely by surprise.

One of the best aspects about this album is its provocative absence of predictability; with the exception of the space-y interludes sprinkled throughout, each track takes you on a path with just enough of a sense of familiarity that you feel like you know exactly where you're going. Unfailingly, though, the songs bring you to locations where you never would have expected to arrive. The overwhelming sense of anticipation brought about in tracks like "NINEZERODAWG" leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about the basic progression of beats in electronic music. The sequence of songs on Tomorrow presents Time Promises Power as the likely lovechild of a ménage à trois involving UNKLE, Propellerheads, and Tosca (and a one night stand with Nine Inch Nails somewhere in the mix). From the hyperactive computer chirps of "Captain Mountaintop" to the raw industrial rock intensity of "Rope of Gloves", this album necessitates several listens before you're able to posit any interpretation of the journey you just experienced.