At the crossroads of dissonance and harmony sits
To Realize, a dark and swirling cloud of post-punk-inspired atmospherics. Every song on the album feels like a puzzle, with waves of feedback, blasts of horns, and crashing drums acting as inscrutable pieces being assembled one by one until a picture eventually emerges, giving you just enough time to understand and appreciate it before it’s taken apart and a new one is started. It’s this kind of controlled chaos that
Clipd Beaks really specialize in. Every time the album feels like it’s about to go completely off the rails it gets reined in just enough to keep you on board for the next sonic outburst, pushing you closer and closer to the edge before pulling you back. “Home” does an excellent job of this, working within the loud-quiet-loud dynamic until it works itself into a spectacular, lurching frenzy that suddenly dissolves into nothingness. “Broke Life” performs a similar feat, with the song evolving and devolving around a persistent drumbeat, slowly morphing into something that resembles what it started as while feeling altogether different. Where
To Realize really succeeds as an album is in its vision and overall consistency. While the songs all feel distinct, they definitely exist in the same ominous space. Whether you’ve been longing for the crashing chaos of This Heat or you just want some challenging headphone music,
To Realize is an album that will certainly reward those willing to give in to the band’s grand design. ~ Gregory Heaney