Belong – Realistic IX – Album Review
by Killian Laher

At last, the long-awaited return of American experimental duo Michael Jones and Turk Dietrich, otherwise known as Belong.  This is their third album and first since 2011.  It opens with the title track, vocals consisting of little other than female ‘coo-ing’ combined with angry, heavily treated guitars.  The growling guitars have serious power, aligned to a great melody.  Difficult Boy features more coo-ing and even gauzier guitars.

Crucial Years and Bleach are more difficult/ambient, depending on your point of view.  There’s little in the way of conventional melody or anything easy like that, but these tracks are the exception, Souvenir and Jealousy are along the lines of the opening two tracks – a unified sound, with slightly different beats but the guitars grind away like fuck.  Image of Love is dominated by choppy, almost drum ‘n’ bass percussion with more heavily treated guitars.  The real departure is the last song AM/PM kind of dubby, club ambient, almost trancey feel with shades of a more uptempo Boards of Canada.

There is less variety than on the superb Common Era but that renders it merely very good.  Yes, it’s a bit samey but here’s the thing – you either love this sound or you don’t.  And those who do will be very, very happy with this.

Souvenir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm3Mj6JaKuc&pp=ygUTYmVsb25nIHJlYWxpc3RpYyBpeA%3D%3D