All Structures Align: Distance and Departure

All Structures Align are Lincoln-based brothers, Tim and Adam Ineson.

Piquing our interest earlier this year with their fantastic debut LP, Details and Drawings, the pair (formerly of underground gems, Nub), created a series elastic ’90s-inspired soundscapes that ghosted between the lines of past and present. The result was something elusively original.

With a track like Cylinders, All Structures Align almost tricked us into thinking this was a Hey Colossus offshoot band trying their hand at slowcore. Details and Drawings had plenty of these beautifully vague and mind-bending moments where, as a listener, you really had to get under the car bonnet for a closer look.

Drafting in veteran percussion, Neil Turpin (Bilge Pump, Ivan the Tolerable, Yann Tiersen et al), All Structures Align make it a quick turnaround for their equally striking follow-up, Distance and Departure.

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With unhurried build-ups and subtle melodies, the inclusion of Turpin gives Distance and Departure delicate new inflections and range. Again, it’s not immediate, almost like deep listening infiltrating rock music. No bad thing.

Continuing the momentum on the back of Details and Drawings, opening track Crown Rockets is like a mini epic, swelling with that vague anthemic feeling Bedhead captured once upon a time.

Every Eye A River follows, and is like a vessel on route to the new world. With a diesel-like chug and warm guitar chime, here All Structures Align produce maze-like post-hardcore; a tourism of sound that bypasses just about every vital act from the ’90s underground.

With The Last Five, All Structures Align create a gorgeous slowcore lullaby, and whilst arguably the finest track of the bunch, such as the nature with albums and bands like this, favourite songs will differ with each listen.

And it continues with Dream of Rigs. With haunting tones and intricacies throughout, the song builds with the kind of frantic precision that sees bands agonising over every crumb of sound for years on end. Not the Ineson brothers. These songs ooze with a quiet confidence from a band with a clear vision.

Meanwhile, Broken sees the band flirting with the kind of eeriness Deliluh showcased earlier this year with their latest offering, Fault Lines. Here though, All Structures Align crank up the volume with a snaking, hypno-rock gusto that possesses an unpredictably likened to the hazardous fool in your local boozer. The kind of person one keeps at arm’s length in fear of either getting their jaw tanned or ribs crushed in an affectionate bear hug. (With the right amount liquor, probably both.)

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There’s no such drama with the lo-fi crawl of We Gather. The eight or so people in the world that once dreamt of a collaboration between June of 44 and Hood can rest easy. It’s an epic finish that provides gruelling tones that sink the heart. In fact, it’s not too dissimilar to label mates, Haress, and, in many ways, between the two bands, they guide us to the logical conclusion of post-rock.

While immersed in the pantheon of ’90s touchstones, All Structures Align don’t really sound like any of them. An album and band that is mightily hard to pin down, this is where the real beauty lies. That unknown quality that awaits with each listen.

Alongside Details and Drawings, not only have All Structures Align produced the best debut of any British band in 2022. With Distance and Departure, they’ve produced a follow-up just a good.

Distance and Departure is out now via Wrong Speed Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.