Now I might come across as nowhere near as grumpy as Harry, but the fact that I cannot decipher the typeface used by Brazilian post-rockers Labirinto and had to do an internet search to be able to read the title of the tracks to their first full album Anatema, put me in a bad mood. That the CD wouldn’t play properly in either my laptop or via my hifi, meaning I had to burn another copy (good job it wasn’t DRM protected) put me in a secondary bad mood. Then each track is a minimum of 10 minutes long, with each one feeding into the next, meaning that you can’t do justice by picking the album up and extracting a track at a time, again made the grumpy-o-meter rise. The fact that the album artwork itself is all twisty gnarled apocalyptic trees, with lovely inserts that drop out and can be parted so each track has it’s own little crib sheet of who played which instrument backed with some more artistic underworld like images…maybe a little less grumpy and onto the music itself.

Reverso is a template opening for the music of Labirinto, with the industrial hum picked up by the haunting cello. Sitar like noises then pervade the piece as it phases and the guitar and violin provide that similar haunting theme, that the entrance of drum and guitar move the whole track onto the next movement, where pizzicato guitar draw the track onto the solo notification of guitar that ebbs and flows away like a Dave Gilmour echo. However as the track begins to build the layering of pizzicato riff, with drum and other guitars just feels a little dense without a single instrument really hammering home the music, it almost begs for something to come screaming through the denseness with it all eventually giving way to the cello, which in its crispness is the most appealing aspect to Reverso.

Incendiarios is similar in style to Reverso, utilising the strings and the more traditional rock instruments whilst having the initial sound of synthesised vocal choralling, although like Reverso, Incendiarios lacks crispness as the track weaves its way towards its conclusion. Chromo sounds like it has been lifted from Twin Peaks, but the midway entrance of guitar is unsatisfactory and seems confused as whether we’re in Radiohead / Ennio Morricone territory.

Like all good wines though Labirinto improves with age and it is the latter tracks of Flagelo and title track Anatema which really shine. Flagelo is a increasingly creeping darkness of a track, that allows each instrument a purposeful separation in creating the darkened nature of the music. There is no rushing here, instead Labirinto aim to craft everything to its soaring heart where it frees itself of the blackness and enters a lighter phase, however, this is tempered as the track returns to its singular guitar bleakness, before wrapping itself up in glorious rolling drums and pieced guitar that seems better levelled than earlier tracks.

Final track Anatema mirrors Flagelo in its gentle build up, before the heavy thud of drum heralds the thundering dawn of progressive notation that reminds one of Hope of the States at their blacker moments. The ending may come across as a clichéd bookmark as it harks to the industrial opening of Reverso, but it also reveals that Labirinto had a clear concept of what Anatema (the album) should be and in its post-rock industrial landscape it is a fitting conclusion.

Alright the album isn’t perfect; it doesn’t leap up and beat you around the head, but subtly weaves the creative use of cello, sitar, banjo and violin with the traditional rock sounds of guitar and drums. Anatema is an album that demands you treat it with the respect of concentrating on what it is offering and if you persevere with it you will be rewarded.

Reviewed by Jimbo Walsh.

Labirinto's Anatema is available to purchase now from their own website.