Despite the anonymous, ‘group’-style name, FOURTEEN TWENTY SIX is predominantly the brainchild of Chris Van Der Linden. Hailing from Eindhoven, Netherlands, he has meticulously pieced together the nine tracks making up his debut album ‘Light Town Closure’, playing most of the instruments bar some additional guitars from Tom Van Nuenen and some guitar and synth from engineer Jelle Goosens.
The resulting album is one of those which the discerning will probably obsess about in years to come. It’s not a record which takes the easy option and it’s certainly one on first name terms with darkness and introspection at the best of times, but it repays any listener keen to pay it real attention and it gets stronger the more you return to it.
Stylistically, it’s a heady and intriguing mix of analogue and digital sounds and it can often be found loitering around a twilight crossroads where icy Post-Punk meets Prog. Opening salvo ‘AM’ and ‘After the Storm’ give you an idea of the ambition on display here. ‘AM’ is bare and stark, with just occasional strokes of acoustic guitar gradually being joined by a distant keyboard wash before Van Der Linden’s close-miked vocal finally creeps in, along with the merest flecks of guitar. I’m picturing Mark Hollis when suddenly the full band sound of ‘After the Storm’ breaks through. This is strong on mystery, atmosphere and fatalism (not a million miles from Sophia territory) courtesy of loaded lyrics like “every time I rebuild my life, it goes down again” and it’s the sort of brooding, scene-setting stuff that soon gets under your emotional skin.
A clutch of similarly existential set pieces follow in its’ wake. ‘Tonight I’ finds Chris confessing “I try to escape the dark, but it keeps calling back to me/ turning dreams into ghosts” while low-key beats and loops jostle with chiming guitars. The morose and scarred ‘Descending’ gropes around gamely for redemption (“I feel so small in this world/ I don’t want to leave you all behind”) and the skeletally sparse ‘White Paint’ initially sounds more like a European Red House Painters although it undergoes something of a sea change when an electronic thrum and extra keyboards seep through the sonic cracks.
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Perhaps the best tracks are ‘Gone Today’ and the epic, closing ‘Lashes’. The latter is a towering, monumental affair which goes for a dark and Gothic burn before building into massive symphonic screes scratching at the ten-minute mark in total. ‘Gone Today’, though, is the most affecting thing here by a country mile. Strongly reminiscent of Porcupine Tree at their most plangent, it’s a stunning portrayal of loss (“timeless, you are in our heart/ you will always be there”) but its’ ghostly beauty quite easily keeps pace with its’ churning melancholy.
Fourteen Twenty Six, then, could well be the emergency line to ring in your hour of need. You’ve got Chris Van Der Linden’s number now. Why don’t you use it?
Fourteen Twenty Six online
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