Pavallion Premiere “Waves” from Stratospheria; Album out Oct. 26
At 10 minutes long, opening track ‘Waves’ plays an important role on Pavallion‘s second album, Stratospheria, out Oct. 26 on Tonzonen Records. From the spacious post-rock guitar line that opens the song with a drift worthy of its title to the subtle vocal harmonies in its verse lines as it moves toward its midsection, it’s the first impression Stratospheria makes, building to a louder instrumental wash as it approaches minute five and pushing decidedly outward from there in its second half with a fluid blend of ambience and weight made whole through steady but creative drumming. By the time it gets to its final push, it’s traversed a not-inconsiderable distance, and its last 30 seconds or so are just a ringout of the massive wall of sound that’s built, but the initial feel of the soothing intro is still maintained. As much as “Waves” seems to bring the tide of volume in as it plays through, it still doesn’t carry much of a sense of threat in the listening experience, and that’s important, because with the other two tracks that comprise the full-length, “Monolith” (5:11) and “Stratospheria” (24:37) itself, they bring a somewhat darker tonality to bear.
Especially in the shorter “Monolith,” the Krefeld, Germany, four-piece of vocalist/guitarist Sebastian Dückers, guitarist/vocalist Steven Hein, bassist Andreas Zanders and drummer Piet Fischer touch on a doomed atmosphere, with low spoken vocals and sparse, thudding drums and plodding guitar with a consuming distortion unfolding amid eerie whispers and a tense line of horror-style notes that comes to the fore in its apex. That departure — still on side A of the 
vinyl, so in any format it immediately follows “Waves” — is key to establishing the personality of the release as a whole. Pavallion‘s 2017 debut, 2048, certainly had its progressive elements, and was a longer outing overall with five tracks/48 minutes as opposed to Stratospheria‘s three and 40 minutes, but while it had heavier moments along with its Floyd-loyalist conscioupsychedelia, there wasn’t anything so grim as the near-goth affect of “Monolith,” the mood of which seems to carry into the title-cut that follows, though with a runtime comprising more than half of the entire album, that song of course has no trouble setting a mood of its own. “Stratospheria” is, obviously, central to the record that shares its name, and perhaps unsurprisingly it seems to bridge the gap between “Waves” and “Monolith,” bringing the disparate sides together into a cohesive entirety of marked flow and a naturalist movement. Its ebbs are open-sounding and hypnotic, and the heft it conjures comes on smoothly and gradually, so that its arrival isn’t awkward or out of place, but an organic growth of the forward motion in the track.
Like “Waves,” “Stratospheria” gets significantly heavy, but retains its sense of atmosphere and carries the foreboding vibe of “Monolith” into its own context, as can be heard in the low-end distortion beneath the repeated guitar line about 16 minutes in. As the last push unfolds, Pavallion craft a fervent wash of noise, and the weighted riff that arrives shortly before the 19-minute mark is emblematic of the grim undertone that seems to be lurking all along, coexisting with the heavy psychedelic and progressive shimmer that “Waves” first set forth. That these two sides are able to come together into a coherent, single statement isn’t an achievement to be overlooked, but in the actual listening, that’s less of an outward impression than the level of engagement the band elicits from the beginning onward. That is, one isn’t likely to be sitting listening to Stratospheria saying, “Hmm, quite nice how they’ve married together diverse ambiences,” while utterly hypnotized by the effect of their doing so.
Appropriately enough, the visual accompaniment for “Waves” in the YouTube embed below is, well, waves. It’s waves. The camera is on a boat and it’s waves. Fair enough to give a sense of the album’s total entrancing aspects, and the crucial work “Waves” does as its opening salvo.
More info follows beneath. I hope you enjoy:
Pavallion, “Waves” visualizer premiere
Does music bend space and time? When a five minute song seems like a huge black hole while a 24-minute-epic rushes past in the blink of an eye, one can get the impression that it’s possible. Concerning PAVALLION, time is relative anyway, as already shown on their debut album „2048“. Following the minimalistic catchiness of their 2017 five track LP, these four guys from Krefeld, Germany, now present their second album STRATOSPHERIA.
It contains 3 atmospheric longtracks that slowly unfold into great epics – from the lone, soft echo in a vast openness to the dense, impenetrable wall of sound. Warm, hypnotic post-rock meets modern psychedelic, reminding some of us of the good old Pink Floyd sound. „Close your eyes and be carried away“ seems to be the motto – both live and in front of the record player.
STRATOSPHERIA is already preoderable and will be released on October 26th via the audiophile indie label TONZONEN RECORDS. It will be available as a limited gatefold LP in the vinyl colours marbled yellow (150 copies) and marbled greenblue (350 copies), as Digipak CD as well as for download.
Pavallion is:
Sebastian Dückers – Lead Vocals / Guitar
Steven Hein – Lead Guitar / Vocals
Andreas Zanders – Bass
Piet Fischer – Drums
