The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi

Album Review

Not many bands could conceive of building an album around the twin poles of family breakdown and astronomer Johannes Kepler's tonal theory of the planets. Even fewer, at least not since the heyday of prog rock, would dare attempt to record such a thing. But that's precisely what the Receiving End of Sirens have done on their sophomore set, The Earth Sing Mi Fa Mi. The title refers to Kepler's hypothesis that Earth's tonal signature would shift back and forth in orbit, with the dark suggestion that those tones — "mi, fa, ma" on the scale — stood for misery and famine. His misery, however, referred to emptiness, and TREOS take up that theme on the opening "Swallow People Whole," further incorporating it into "Obliette (Disappear)" and "Smoke and Mirrors." Kepler's famine, meanwhile, referred not to starvation, but a desire for things. And indeed desire is the subject of "The Crop and the Pest," while lust and craving drive "Saturnus." "The Salesman, the Husband, the Lover" sets the stage for the album's other concept, with its web of disintegrating relationships woven through the set, and is based on a story written by Brendan Brown. This theme reaches a nadir on "The Heir of Empty Breath" as the band pleads to be taken away from the emotional wreckage, with the album closing with the haunting "Pale Blue Dot" and its repeated refrain, "There's no place like home." Thematically, this is a complex set, and musically even more so, as the band weaves a dense tapestry of sound, multi-shaded and many colored. This was true of their debut as well, but here they exude confidence and take it to a whole new level. "Swallow" revels in Depeche Mode territory before spilling into prog rock, pomp-rock organ swans across "The Crop," while tinkling, delicate melodies trill through "A Realization of the Ear" and the blurry, underwater instrumental "Music of the Spheres." Big guitars splay across "The Heir," and rousing choruses abound everywhere, while the band's dynamics fuel the entire album. All told, a superb set meant to be savored over and over again.