About a decade ago, I became incensed upon reading a negative review of the self-titled album from Vue—a band I enjoyed at the time. What infuriated me was not that the reviewer did not like the album, but that he clearly had no idea who the band was and had hoped for some atmospheric electronic music based on the album’s esoteric black and white cover. When he was treated to 45 minutes of noisy, dirty rock and roll, he reacted with predictable disgust. While the album has not aged well to my ears, I still feel it at least deserved a review from someone who actually liked rock and roll.

I bring this up before writing my review of Climb Up by Apse because I also have no idea who these guys are, and because their album cover reminds me of Vue’s. Fortunately for Apse, I think the album cover sucks: it is boring and begs to be forgotten. So Apse is in no danger of disappointing my expectations. Unfortunately however, the album only confirms my book-cover judgment. The music is amorphous and weak. Very little stands out after several listens.

Apparently these guys have been around for ten years. Listening to this album, I understand why I had never heard of them before. Like their album cover, Apse seem set on making their music as boring and intangible as possible. Looking up their Wikipedia page, I see words like “shoegaze” and “tribal” thrown around to describe them. I guess shoegaze is probably right in the sense that Apse take all of the worst elements of the genre—whispered vocals, weak songwriting and bland production—and put them in this album. Unfortunately, my favorite shoegaze hallmark—loud guitars—is missing. Everything on this album is buried under bland synthesizers.

That said, “Blown Doors” gets the album off to a decent start. The vocals are annoying, but by song's end, the melody builds into something that is almost compelling, and my complaints about the singing are forgotten. Unfortunately, all of my complaints about the production of this album are present on this track. This band simply has no idea what to do with an interesting melody to make it stand out. And as soon as the song picks up, it is over. This track is followed by “3.1” which has a pleasantly pretty chorus. Unfortunately, the verses manage to be both boring and obnoxious; boring because of the music, and obnoxious because of the vocals. The singer seems to only have two ways of singing: high pitched whisper or high pitched shriek.

Sometimes I start to wonder if there are good songs here buried under terrible production. After all, Swans saw some of their best songs robbed of their strength and destroyed by terrible production on The Burning World. On Climb Up, the guitars are often so low in the mix (particularly on “Rook”) that they can’t do anything. But I doubt production is the real culprit. No one makes the lead singer sing this way. Apse also show a tendency for frustrating dramatics. “All Mine” is a trudging, mid-tempo rock song full of unfocused angst that never finds its target. “Gold” features a breakdown in the middle where piano notes are played on top of atmospheric noise. If this is not a musical cliché, then it should be.

At least Apse know to save the best for last. “Closure” is a fairly upbeat and catchy rock song. It may not be anything that I would seek out, but for the most part, I can find nothing to fault with it. I do have a vague feeling that the tune is borrowed or stolen, but I can’t place it. Maybe it’s just that catchy? After the previous 45 minutes though, you’ll have to forgive me for having trouble believing these guys are capable of creating any good original songs. And even if they are, it is too little too late.

Track List:
1. Blown Doors (4:30)
2. 3.1 (4:09)
3. All Mine (5:13)
4. Rook (3:41)
5. In Gold (5:09)
6. The Age (3:54)
7. Tropica (4:03)
8. The Whip (3:42)
9. Lie (5:34)
10. The Return (5:29)
11. Climb Up (4:12)
12. Closure (5:09)