Valley of Fire
is a bit of a departure for instrumental rock duo
El Ten Eleven
. While usually upbeat, their music has always had its bittersweet or melancholy tendencies, reflecting on the losses of loved ones while also celebrating their lives. They've also found inventive ways to construct danceable grooves without any sort of programming or sequencing, but with the aid of real-time looping effects, earning a sizeable following as a live act. This time, however, their music has a much more somber tone to it, and there's more of an emphasis on studio experimentation rather than live energy. The opening song is called "New Year's Day," already making this release seem like the flip side to their previous one,
New Year's Eve
. It starts out slow, sparse, and somewhat brooding, with the intimate sounds of coins in a bowl being hit by a mallet for percussion, and swooping bass that unexpectedly sounds like a bowed cello. "Not Even Almost" has an almost dub-paced rhythm and gentle melodies, then moves into a more intense section that both gallops and swirls. "Two Views of a Secret" is calm and expansive, floating across the water rather than striding on the street like previous track "Volsens," yet it ends up with a much harder crunch. "White Domes" also plays around with textures, starting out with tremolo effects and a meaty bass tone before shifting into more cascading, delicate sections. The album's title track starts out as a placid drone, taking a full two minutes before a bassline slowly creeps in and a muted electronic clap of a beat surfaces. Rhythm is still central to
's work, but on this album, they focus on graceful motion and subtle development rather than jubilant celebration, and the results are quietly powerful. ~ Paul Simpson