Review | Album review: post-rock titans 65daysofstatic head to infinity and beyond
The soundtrack to the video game No Man’s Sky is the perfect environment for the UK band to unleash their atmospheric, cinematic epics
No Man’s Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe
Concord
For their seventh studio album, electronic post-rock instrumentalists 65daysofstatic have created a soundtrack for a space-exploration video game played in a vast universe – with more than 18 quintillion planets, if you’re counting. Even for a band that have consistently produced expansive and mesmerising cinematic soundscapes, that’s a pretty tall order. Fans of 2013’s critically acclaimed Wild Light will see No Man’s Sky as a natural progression of the Sheffield quartet’s sound and, with the band due to headline Clockenflap’s KEF stage on Saturday, the city lights will surely only add to the exhilarating sci-fi vibe of these intense, galactic tunes. Foreboding opener Monolith builds around heavy percussion and a propulsive electronic rhythm, before the soaring guitars of Supermoon take us into more typical post-rock territory. There’s no denying this genre is often in danger of repeating itself – Asimov could be mistaken for a Mogwai tune – but No Man’s Sky proves to be as exhilarating as space travel itself, a work of scope and ambition, and the perfect score to an infinite cosmos.