Australian artist Bradley Murray has been releasing sprawling instrumental music under the moniker The Finch Cycle since 2020. Having released two EPs, Murray has taken the leap to a full-length debut, collaborating with drummer Michael Evans-Barker and trombonist Brendan Bartlett on Mt. Pilot. The album leans into a shady, atmospheric style, producing ruminatively muted post-rock characterised by creeping guitar riffs and a sweet interplay of melody and rhythm. Produced throughout 2023 in various homes across Ballarat, Bendigo, and Wangaratta—regional cities in Victoria, Australia—Mt. Pilot carries a homespun charm, though at times this can offset the group's vibrational power.
The album title ostensibly references the mountain found in the Chiltern-Mt. Pilot National Park in the band's native Victoria. The album cover dons an artistic photograph of (presumably) the mountain, veiled by sporadic masses of cloud or fog—a fitting cover for an album with its sights set high. Murray often creates stirring riffs, like on the elegant "Parents and Friends," with its hints of emo and punk that turn into raucous and energizing moments of rocking out. The slow-burning "A Transient Response" demonstrates the limitations of the production method, translating the slog of mountaineering, with quiet glimpses of beauty among strained breath.
Some tracks are more rhythmically focused than melodic, like the sharp pulses of "A Ticket for August," which evolve into a barroom brawl anthem, or the jerky rhythms of "James Squared," which operate persistently before erupting in a wave of crash cymbals.
The complex guitar patterns across the collection are exemplified on the album's possible summit, "Neuro Backpack," which folds ominous trombone into its highly concentrated and well-worked-out patterns. Elsewhere, "An Avalanche of Hope" is an innocuous but cheery distraction, "Diesel Hands" maps out jagged terrain alongside brief but exhilarating ascents, while the opening track, "Sarah Tone In," is a spacious and atmospherically affecting piece underpinned by its nostalgia-conjuring ostinato.
Mt. Pilot by The Finch Cycle is a musically rich and ultimately amp-blasting collection of post-rock jams, marked by pretty and inventive guitar riffs, subtle but impressive trombone, and suitably ambitious but down-to-earth drum composition. Like the peaks and troughs of the mountain featured in the title and cover, there are ups and downs. The home-produced allure doesn’t always match the group’s Himalayan ambitions. Thankfully, this is not a Sisyphean endeavour. In fact, it’s a journey that's likely to enrich your day.
★★★½