It would be all too easy to file Enablers' 'Blown Realms' in the 'experimental rock' or 'spoken word' or even - at a push - 'avant-noise' brackets, but to do so would be selling it well short, because it's so much more than either of these.
In fact, it's so much more than any attempt at genre distinction could convey. The post-rock exploration of 'Career-Minded Individual', for instance, is essentially a spoken word piece with musical accompaniment, but then again, the music is so much more than mere background, sweeping the mood along and rising to a restrained yet perfectly weighted crescendo . It contrasts with the style - and the narrative - of 'Cliff', which is turn is completely different from the opener, 'Patton', which throws a whole heap of stuff into the melting pot, spanning The Birthday Party, The Fall and elements of mathcore, to perform musical alchemy. Threading all of these disparate elements together is Pete Simonelli, spinning his prose and poetry in an eminently listenable baritone that's simultaneously laid-back and expressive - no mean feat. Spoken word recordings are rarely this compelling, or as expertly interwoven with the musical element as on this album.
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Then there's the jazzy prog math-rock of instrumental track 'Hard Love Seat' and the expansive rockout of 'Rue Giradon'... 'Blown Realms' incorporates so many elements, yet avoids messiness by distilling them to create a blend that provides the perfect foil to the narratives. Herein lies the album's real achievement. Never predictable, yet never too harsh on the ear and without being in any way disjointed, it's an album of depth, and of range. Above all, though, it's an album of quality.
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