American post-rockers Saxon Shore hit back. “It Doesn’t Matter,” the quintet’s follow-up to 2005’s “The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore” is a welcome return to form for the band and their original leader Matthew Doty.

Having gone through a long period of upheaval - be it line-up changes and relocations - the band spent four solid years as a unit before plucking up the courage to hit the Tarbox Road Studios Cabin out in Cassadega, New York.

Apt then, that the unearthing of “It Doesn’t Matter” follows a line of melodic delicacy that recent post-rock efforts appear to have departed. Album opener ‘Nothing Changes’ rocks gently into the onslaught of feedback drenched guitars while ‘Bar Clearing Good Times’ maintains an unexpected steadiness that other same-vein bands like Explosions In The Sky often make the habit of breaking from.


Not that “It Doesn’t Matter” is a battering on the senses. It’s careful mix of quiet interludes and roaring overcharges maintains a balance that makes for unexpectedly easy listening. The album’s dabbling with lyricism is hardy enough to warrant a more intense ear largely because it is limited mainly to the soulful ‘This Place’. An attempt to breed a very My Bloody Valentine vocal trip is rather quashed under the ethereal-like quality of their sound.

In fact Saxon Shore stick very much to what they’re best at on this album. Dreamy soundscapes, full of dramatic rises and falls, varying levels of percussive intensity and looming crescendo’s that carry the energy of a genre very often overlooked. Much in the same way that the post-rock juggernaut of Mogwai’s “Mr Beast” conjures up images of former golden years lost, “It Doesn’t Matter” has a similar kind of melancholic quality.



Closer 'Goodnight, So Long' takes a long time to come, but the record is anything but a dirge. Instead the listener is rocked back and forth on a sound that comes most alive late into a winters evening. Fresh from touring Japan, where reception has certainly been kind, the band appears to have birthed a new streak of creativity, which “It Doesn’t Matter” rides gallantly upon. But in a genre that really struggles for exposure in the commercial rock and pop littering of radio and TV, one can’t help but feel a little put out that a band as good as this will also remain largely forgotten.

The record of their careers thus far.