Windsor For the Derby
How We Lost
(Secretly Canadian, 2008)

Of all the albums that are released each month, there are always some that are considered growers. Ones that remain out of the mainline of consciousness, ones that speak to people with the patience, fortitude, or faith to keep on investing in the complexities of a record, even though the first few listens may not stand up on their own emphatic legs. Oftentimes slow and convoluted, these growers may get overlooked or cast aside because of the time required to extract its brewing beauty or significance. Growers may even stand less of a chance today than ever before—there are so many bands putting out albums, and if an album doesn’t speak to you somewhat immediately then it’s easy to move on to the next, right? Windsor For the Derby’s new album How We Lost is an understated but intricately crafted example of an album that becomes more and more appealing the more time I spend with it.

It’s also one that fares best through headphones. The accompanying one-sheet claims the band “spent the last year and a half writing and recording the How We Lost record. Holed up for days on end in their Philadelphia studio, they recorded and re-recorded obsessively until every sound was exactly where they wanted it.” This is the stuff that post-rock is made of: Ambient guitar and layered instrumentation awash on a plane of subtlety. Every detail well orchestrated and deliberate, How We Lost is quiet and brooding but also breaks out into crescendos of subdued candor, most notably on the album’s second track, “Maladies”, which is a lovely transition from the nearly creepy intro, “Let Go.”

The album continues in this deliberately restrained manner, from slow burning songs like “Fallen Off the Earth” into the quickly moving “Hold On.” In its entirety, How We Lost is not an album that will move me per se, but it’s a commendable one with its selective choice of encompassing instrumentation that abstains from becoming too heavy-handed or pretentious. The focus of the band is tangible, and it’s possible to discern some of the controlled frustration that went into this recording. Again, the one-sheet qualifies that “Gear broke, hard drives crashed, gear broke again, and nervous breakdowns ensued.” How We Lost is the band’s eighth album, an impressive run for a group that’s never really broken out from a niche side of the underground.

“Forgotten” is a plucky, thoughtful ode (“Are you worried you’ll be forgotten / Without your story told / So sad to be forgotten / And grow old alone”), and the following “Troubles” is a meltdown of post-rock sound reminiscent to Mogwai. The following “What We Want” is a dreamy dance of a song with lyrics that don’t dig in too deep, as they are nearly afterthoughts to the album’s overall atmosphere: “What we want / To close our eyes / What we want / Is close your eyes / What we have / To lose we rise.”

This is not a revelation, nor is it an essential album, but it’s one that is beautifully crafted and continues to gain strength and durability with each listen. There will always be a place for dedicated and graceful albums like How We Lost in the rock canon.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

More articles by Angela Zimmerman:

It Shows: The Breeders, Vetiver

Album review of the Black Angels, Directions to See a Ghost

Album review of Jamie Lidell, Jim