Errors – Have Some Faith In Magic Album Review

Scottish electronica act Errors have shown steady growth through the years. The band’s debut, It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever, was a calculated assault of electronics and synth, and their second album, Come Down With Me, brought in a bit more melody while retaining those previous elements. Now on their third full-length release, Have Some Faith In Magic, Errors are utilizing their songwriting skills in a more restrained way, to great effect.

The album opens with “Tusk”, a song equally driven by both synthesizers and guitars. At heart, the Scottish band still retains elements of their more recognizable United Kingdom brothers in post-rock, 65daysofstatic and Mogwai. But whereas both those bands tend to go for more crescendos, crashing guitar riffs, and heavy electronic thuds, Errors paves their way with gentle melodies.

Have Some Faith in Magic is also the death of the vocal-less phase of Errors. Most instrumental bands can only last so long before dabbling with them, and Errors use vocals like other spacey electronica acts do; the vocals are merely just another layer of melody, just another instrument. “Magna Encarta” and “Cloud Chamber” echo throughout with electronic-swamped vocals, adding extra scope to the songs – but the band never uses vocals as the main driving point.

One of Errors strengths has been their fine balance between melody and hard-driving electronic beats. As much as the band relies upon slight and small build-ups in songs, the fantastic “Pleasure Palaces” shows the band knows how to execute the tried-and-true post-rock grandstanding of high audio peaks and deep sonic valleys. The song maintains a thorough dance club feel throughout without completely devolving into nothing more than a drum and bass beat. Subtlety has now become Errors strongest suit, which is fitting of a band that has been slowly but surely fine-tuning its brand of music over the years.

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