Kepler - 'Attic Salt' (Resonant) Released 06/02/2006

If Kepler's previous output is anything like Attic Salt, their continuing low-profile existence on the outer margins of indie rock is one of music's more notable injustices. To be fair, the Canadian outfit aren't exactly forthcoming in welcoming casual listeners to their shimmering sphere. If rock is a party, Kepler are the shy, introverted bloke nursing a drink in the corner whilst it's more outgoing counterparts get loaded, turn up the volume and do the boogaloo. Give it a bit of time, though, and the rewards a patient listener reaps from Attic Salt are ample.

The crashing, ominous piano chords and gradually intensifying, swelling feedback drone of album opener 'Broken Bottles Blackened Hearts' suggest Godspeed You Black Emperor at their most subdued and there are hints of Resonant label mates Emery Reel in the intense, richly textured but sparse guitar-led musicianship, but that's where Attic Salt's post-rock references end. Instead, Kepler locate an incredibly enchanting, uncluttered late-night zone somewhere between the experimental, genre-defying americana of Wilco and My Morning Jacket and the moping 'slowcore' of Low and Red House Painters (most obviously detectable in the weary sigh of Samir Khan's Mark Kozelek-esque vocals), with a big dollop of sparkling soul thrown in the pot for added warmth. 

The tunes, happily, are just as impeccable as such illustrious influences suggest. If the unhurriedly evolving likes of 'Thoroughbred Gin' initially frustrate by seemingly meandering instead of delivering the knockout punch, repeated listens reveal that in Kepler's hands a single pluck of a string or a bit of glimmering guitar-keyboard-lap steel interaction is worth much, much more than the predictable thrills of lighters-aloft singalong action or supersonic soloing. And when the band can be bothered with the straightforward verse-chorus structure, as on the magnificently melancholy 'My Other' and the relaxed 'Rented Limousine', the results are pure, slow-paced pop beauty. Pick of the bunch, however, is the breathtaking elderly parent's lament 'Bedside Manner', which somehow manages to be simultaneously understatedly low-key and expansively epic, whilst the invigorating strut of the uptempo 'National Epithet' shows that Kepler's can also rock out without a hint of embarrassment.

In some ways the most impressive thing about Kepler's beautiful, frequently stunning third album is that the band is probably capable of hitting even loftier heights. After all, Attic Days was recorded amidst label trouble, money problems, internal strife (longtime member Jeremy Gara left to join the Arcade Fire) and plans to pack it all in. Who knows what Kepler could achieve if they could concentrate fully on the priority, music?