On Forty Years to Find a Voice, Rothko stretch out, using Simon Tilbury’s vocals and winds as well as reeds and brass alongside their trademark 3 bass guitar sound. The results are compelling although some may miss the directness of their earlier material.
Rothko’s music up until now, anyway, has been about intent focus and the creation of restrained harmonic tensions that create powerful emotional dreamscapes for the listener. The same goes for “Beatharian,” with Tilbury, his vocal, as soft and pleasant as it is, shuffling along like a sane Syd Barrett, becomes an extraneous piece of baggage in a mix that doesn’t seem to want to accommodate it. Instead the record works best when Rothko lets the guard down (“Open” and “Us to Become Sound”) and allows the full flow of their unique approach to flower: heavily textured ambience and wispy backdrops offer the lead instruments a chance to sound pretty, if not beautiful, as they wind around their atmospheres and eventually become them. This isn’t a bad record by any stretch and is worth owning by anyone interested in the band; it’s just an ambition that, as lovely as it is, narrowly misses the mark.
‘Like their namesake, Rothko paint a fine, disturbing and beautiful art.’ -Mark Thwaite