Aurganic - Distant Echoes & Close Encounters (Self-Released)

Aurganic is an experimental rock group from New York and Toronto. A collaboration between two long-time friends Michael Kossov and Leo Pisaq, the band recently released their third full-length album, Distant Echoes & Close Encounters. The release is the result of a two year process, and only half of the songs recorded made the cut. As always, a sense of enthusiastic experimentation is grafted onto a core that has essentially survived since the duo’s days spent in punk bands. Muse and Radiohead are obvious touchstones here, and the band is exploring the post rock genre with an increasing fervor that is more apparent than on any previous releases.

It’s impossible to doubt that when the band writes and records, they’re aiming for the arenas, but it’s also a subtle subversion of this aesthetic, because the efforts on this record are deceivingly complex. The opener “Signs” is a song that never stays in one single place for long, and although it’s a behemoth in its density, it’s continually growing and evolving. There is a jazzy undercurrent to the band’s focus as well, and it’s flavor is more apparent on songs like “Invincible (In the Shadows)” in which you can almost trace the lineage from the seeds first planted by groups like Steely Dan. Distant Echoes & Close Encounters will undoubtedly be remembered as a great leap forward for Aurganic, a band unafraid to step outside of their own comfort zone.