Minor Victories’ new album Orchestral Variations follows the group’s 2016 eponymous debut and is arguably pure genius, but possibly not for everyone – fans of the first album perhaps included.
The group has deftly sidestepped the issue of difficult second album syndrome with a self-reflexive instrumental re-imagining. Orchestral Variations elicits the melodies, counter melodies and motifs of the first record, guilessly surveying the arrangements, thematic phrases and pacing of each track. The effect is particularly cinematic, perhaps even exquisite, with just enough post-rock residue.
Opening track Cogs commences with a fragility that crumbles into a cyclical melancholic piano phrase and then shifts again, robustly soaring up into full flight before coquettishly reinstating its original frailty for a fleeting moment. Breaking My Light is more urgent with frantically pounding keys and abruptly surging strings. The Thief is a wistful piano piece that soon swells with bulbous synth. Give Up The Ghost is full of optimism, bright and jubilant with xylophone percussion, then imbued with longing by strings. Scattered Ashes is searching, doleful. For You Always is daintily fraught with foreboding.
Orchestral Variations is masterfully conceived and crafted. A triumphant follow-up album, as they say in the classics.
By Jack Latimore
