Serendipity is deciding to check out this band with the strange name while cursing our James for ruining my planned band of the week by writing about it better than I would ever have. Halfway through my elaborate curse, I already had a great new band of the week. Totally unrelated musically, of course, but if you follow these Wednesday follies of mine you might have already noticed how my tastes are ever so slightly schizo. Hell, I'm writing this while I listen to The Lord Weird Slough Feg. True fact.

Anyway, on to Consciousness Removal Project, a Finnish band which has, to my shame, existed for quite a while without me noticing them, it seems. Starting out as a solo instrumental ambient thing, guitarist/vocalist Antti Loponen has recently surrounded himself with a full band and changed the musical direction to something heavier and more concrete, and what a good move that was. A 2009 EP intitled '852' was the first discographic step with this set-up, and now here's 'Do You Ever Think It's The End Of The World?', the one that impressed me enough to pick this bunch for band of the week. On their MySpace, they describe themselves thusly: "Post-metal from Tampere, Finland. Everything from post-rockish build-ups to dark metal riffs. With both clean and screamed vocals." and sometimes it really is better to let musicians do the talking, since that nails it very accurately.

Of course, that description might also make you reach for the snooze button if you're overwhelmed with the interchangeable post-whatever deluge of the past few years, but Consciousness Removal Project are a fortunate exception, with true individual personality. It shows that Antti has experience with ambient music, because those build-ups and dreamy post-rock meanderings never go on for too long, and they always serve a purpose within the structure of the song. If you pick apart the different components of a song like 'The Ship', for example, just to mention my favourite one, there's ethereal female vocals, screamy beard-metal bits, ass-heavy riffing and post-rock plinky-plonky bits, ie, the potential for a huge mess, but the whole thing just flows along with the greatest ease in the world. 'Do You Ever Think It's The End Of The World?' is heavy, yes, but it treads a fine balance. It's never brutal or in your face, not even in the darker roared parts, but it's never wimpy or too dreamy for its own good. It's not the soundtrack for the eventual apocalypse itself, it's the soundtrack for sitting on the porch on a quiet evening with a drink, thinking about it. It's like the best parts of Red Sparowes (like, the first album) sprinkled with the endearing nerdiness of Rosetta and a little Mouth Of The Architect contemplative ferocity thrown in. With a lot of Consciousness Removal Project holding it all nicely together.

If you're curious and want to check it out right now, you don't even need to be a dirty pirate to do it. CRP make their albums freely available on the interwebs, so just go here and get yours. And say "thank you".

Consciousness Removal Project MySpace

Get the album

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José's Band Of The Week goes up on Wednesdays and I'm open to any great band of any style, apart from the ones James Hoare picks first. Get in touch at jose.bandoftheweek@gmail.com with suggestions.