The brand new album from Barcelona's emo-rock heroes, About Leaving. Ten new tracks that have been a while in the making but well worth the wait. Swaying from the gentle indie melody of Promise Ring style pop, through to Touche Amore screaming this release has character and depth and is a must have for any post-punk afficianado.
 
The album is co-released by Engineer, Navalla, CGTH and I'm Not Going Out Tonight Records.
The full tracklist is as follows:
 
1 - Feigning colors
2 - As light
3 - Conversations in a car
4 - If ever it fallls
5 - Background character
6 - The hours, their weight
7 - These walls
8 - Dance & tremble
9 - There, at that place
10 - That girl you know, the singer
 
All music by About leaving. All lyrics by Jaime Pizarro.
Recorded at Wave Factory by Victor Teller and Estudi Núvol by Martí Ferrer.
Mixed by Joan Peiron at L’Orella Escapçada and Mastered by Victor Garcia at Ultramarinos Mastering.
Artwork by Joan Pérez.
Pictures by Joan Garolera.
 
About leaving 'Sculptures of water' review by Marcel Pujols, Spanish rock journalist:
Anyone reading these lines probably already has an idea about what emo is. They know that a high dosage of self reflection translated to song can account for complex musical estructures. They know that, in lyrics dissecting emotion in such precise manner, the interpellation to the listener is unavoidable. They also know that, in the middle of 2021, the usual dreads concerning the musics of the subgenre back in the early two thousands are being revised. There’s an ongoing deconstruction of the wounded man resenting and blaming everyone else. The band I’m going to talk about could be considered a shining example of this new emo.
 
About leaving carries emotion in every letter of the band’s appropriate name. They talk about leaving while remaining responsible of finding themselves, of hatching detailed songs and publish them in a second album that grows, regarding An echo (2016), in register and compositional ambition.
 
The project started by Jaime Pizarro (Main vocals and guitar), Martí Ferrer (Main guitar) and Jordi Erra (Drums) after the disappearance of Ears at 2013 is going through a sweet moment, despite the pandemic. With the solid incorporation of Joan Pérez (Bass guitar) and Claudi Dosta (Guitar), the band adds new perspectives and it becomes self-apparent that four out of the five members have contributed with songs to the album. That turns Sculptures of water into a polyhedral display of visions, departing from emo to find sounds close to post rock, power pop, math or even indie folk.
The album sets off with a true statement of intent, as lyrical as it is musical, with “Feigning colors”, an adrenaline rush of such volume and intensity that reminds to Touché Amoré when Jaime takes on the microphone fully screaming. An initial warning that the tendency of the record is to rise up into a punch and explode without regret and in stridency.
 
In any case, every song is composed of passages. Since almost no song lowers the 3 and a half minute mark, the pungency of some moments contrast with the self-communion of other instances.
Every piece is a story. An irregular journey to go onboard and listen to the different soundscapes that can awake both euphoria and weep while also maintaining a well-being sensation throughout the whole experience.
 
And then there’s the lyrics. The album starts with a justification of the band’s name in an elopement of everything that oppress us. An option that’s nothing but an illusion, but a worthy one at that. In what epitomizes the great theme of the album, About leaving’s escape is orchestrated through the tortuous path of memory. Of those things you remember and those you don’t. Of what you thought you had forgotten but suddenly comes back.
 
One could say the record is nostalgic in regards to the lyrics, not because Jaime’s writing reflects on a supposedly glorious past, but because it stands for living in a permanent state of longing. A personal way of dealing both with the present and the future.
 
Remorse, desaffection, past relationships and the inescapable ambiguity of unhinged introspection fill the album. Is there poetry? Of course. Is there mystery? Of course. Is there room for reinterpretation? This third ‘of course’ is even bigger, and that’s what makes the message of Sculptures of water so rich and interesting.
 
In any case, Jaime’s thoughts don’t derive of those old cliché macho patterns we discussed at the beginning, but of the will to find answers in past and presents behaviors. Those sculptures of water that one tries to grab and apprehend but leak forming pools in the ground are nothing but a slippery stand-in for one-self emotions, those that could take a couple of lifetime to decipher.