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Nov 04, 2024

Hammock, “From the Void” | Bandcamp Daily

If Billboard ever started an Ambient Hot 100, Hammock would surely be at the top of the chart. Based in Nashville, Andrew Thompson and Marc Byrd have been refining their take on post-rock for more

If Billboard ever started an Ambient Hot 100, Hammock would surely be at the top of the chart. Based in Nashville, Andrew Thompson and Marc Byrd have been refining their take on post-rock for more than 20 years. Like a stratospheric crossfade executed by some celestial being, Hammock slots perfectly into a liminal space between Explosions in the Sky’s cathartic crescendos and Stars of the Lid’s event horizon lullabies. The industrious duo has crafted over a dozen albums that—with the exception of two early LPs on the influential Darla Records—they have released themselves. One album that Hammock Music did not put out was A Hopeful Sign, the odd-couple pairing of Hammock with William Ryan Key, lead singer of platinum-selling pop-punkers Yellowcard. Jettisoning the power chords and the palm mutes, Thompson and Byrd used vocal and piano tracks provided by Key to reimagine selections from Yellowcard’s catalog. Coming out earlier this year, A Hopeful Sign transmuted adolescent angst into gentle, sepulchral ballads flush with adult yearning and regret. Perhaps less surprising is that these experts of meticulous, patient scene-setting manifested post-rock’s cinematic tendencies by scoring 2017’s acclaimed Columbus. Following that up with a soundtrack for the video game Far Cry 5 Presents: We Will Rise Again, Hammock also delivered a trio of albums that addressed grief and loss in ways both intimate and widescreen.

Even by Hammock’s skyscraping standards, 2023’s Love in the Void was perhaps their most towering statement yet in a career spent sculpting grand narratives. Collecting four tracks recorded during the Love in the Void sessions with four brand new compositions, From the Void’s relatively brief runtime gives it the patina of a pop album. While nothing here is crying out for an adventurous commercial radio DJ like its predecessor’s “Undoing,” Hammock remain virtuosos of ambient post-rock—wordless choral vocals intertwine with gorgeous string arrangements and majestic layers of reverb into something like full-band ghost notes that soothe, swell, and occasionally snap. Evoking Sigur Rós, “Arms Around Your Sorrow” drapes a graceful drone over shimmering guitar and faraway piano. “Night As Bright As Day” could score the aurora borealis and no one would ask for a refund. Regarding the album, Byrd writes, “Adding these pieces and pulling them from the void creates what we think is a bridge between LITV and our next LP.” This Hammock is a bridge, and this music is a balm.