Over the years there've been a handful of bands that have perfected the cacophonic noise aesthetic to an art form. Somewhere between the band's prior album, 1996's Repetition , and Challenge they developed a newfound maturity that seems to have expanded their musical horizons. Along with song writing improvements, Unwound also continued down this fresher course by introducing horns and a Hammond organ into the mix.
Control is now the band's fort .
You is a double dose of sporadic abrasiveness tempered by a more subdued, well-rounded approach. Where Unwound once relied almost exclusively on dissonance layered over bursts of staccato guitars and pummeling drum patterns, each of the songs on Leaves exhibits a more cohesive and texture sound. Unwound's earlier minimalist tendencies are almost gone. Their songs are no longer experiments in getting from point A to point B but are instead lessons in what fills the vast space between those two points. Unwound is to today's Post-Punk scene as Sonic Youth was to the late 80's.