Paatos “Silence of Another Kind” CD

It's been just about a year since I was first introduced to Paatos via the Darkdose website and subsequently bought both of their full-lengths, so I was quite pleased when the Swedish outfit's third album, "Silence of Another Kind", recently appeared in my mailbox from Inside Out Music. Much like their past work, this endeavor is a bit outside of my normal listening realm, which makes it hard for to explain what it is that they do with any particular classifications, though of course the band's approach is somewhat atypical in its own right, so it's not something that should be pigeonholed regardless.

The label refers to this outing as "heavier" and tags the range of variety from "dark, gothic rock to mellotron-laded post-rock", which is basically accurate, though to me this is not a "heavier" album at all, as Paatos' music is generally quite lush and beautiful in its relaxed yet melancholic disposition. Certain elements of this material seem a bit more song-based and less abstract in some ways, with a couple of more obvious similarities to certain contemporary progressive rock textures, but for the most part it's still a very chilled out and atmospheric affair driven by gorgeous female vocals over restrained melodies. And the recording is astoundingly awesome as usual, with densely layered instrumentation that still retains a crisp presence amongst such a thick sense of warmth. While I much prefer the incredible artwork of the band's prior albums to his particular excursion, the disc is housed in a die-cut matte digipack, so... there is still some visual appeal to go along with the band's mesmerizing compositions.

Paatos "Shame"
Paatos "Falling"

I'm always on the looked for material of this nature to give me a breather, but it's sort of rare that I come across something that really suits me, so I'm very grateful to have been presented with Paatos' work. They've yet to disappoint, so pick this up if you enjoy the tracks above, and look into the band's other records while you're at it:

@ The End Records