Having embarked on a two-year quest for a new sound (cue Mighty Boosh gags), Decoder Ring have returned with what they’ve described as their definitive album: the cumbersomely titled They Blind the Stars, and the Wild Team. Indeed, this record does see the Sydney quartet turning quite a corner, not so much expanding their sonic borders as unceremoniously tearing them down.

This double album is split into two definite halves: the first disc is closer to the Decoder Ring of yore, with its propulsive kraut-ish rhythms and soaring melodies. But it shows a more effervescent side of Decoder Ring than they’ve ever really explored in the past, especially on the likes of ‘Beat the Twilight’ and ‘Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom’. To call it accessible might not be entirely appropriate, but it’s definitely a step in that direction.

Though there’s a certain meticulousness to much of first disc, especially in the dense layering of sounds, it also exhibits a notable looseness; an almost-live feeling that captures the sound of a band playing in a room. Clearly, their delight in crafting densely layered pieces is superseded by the fact that Decoder Ring are, first and foremost, a live band.

This is taken to its logical end on the album’s second disc, which is an entirely less structured affair. Recorded almost entirely in a single improvisational take, it’s a 35-minute journey through ambient inner-space, where guitars create gentle beds of formless drift and percussion is used sparingly. Decoder Ring have flirted with this kind of soundscaping in the past, but here they dive headlong into it, coming out on the other side with something that will, in the long run, stand as a pinnacle (if not the pinnacle) of their career.

In bravely stepping so far outside of their comfort zone, Decoder Ring have successfully eschewed the kind of stagnation that so often besets bands. But, cleverly, they haven’t abandoned everything that made us fall in love with them in the first place.

by Adam D Mills