The Unwinding Hours - The Unwinding Hours - Digital Album (2010)
Original UK Release Date: 15th February 2010. Entire Album Download With Cover Art - 10 Tracks (320K bit rate; 118MB)
The Unwinding Hours' self-titled album deals primarily with failing relationships, something Craig is happy to clarify: "The main themes throughout the record are of relationships: some ending, some starting, some going well, some going very, very badly. Traces attempts to capture that powerful, almost drunken, sensation you feel when a relationship is in its infancy; Child deals with the bitter end of another."
There is an argument that wreckage (emotional or otherwise) recurs heavily throughout the course of the album: Annie Jane is named after a real shipwreck while the closing track, The Final Hour, emerged from its own period of prolonged upheaval. Initially recorded in a friend's Boston studio during Aereogramme's last tour of the US, The Final Hour demo was conceived with the rain hammering down on a dispiriting, traumatic tour and, as Iain points out, "the original demo definitely reflected that. So much so that I don't think Craig even wanted to listen to the song again let alone put it on the album, but I kept insisting it was a belter and that we should work on it. The refrain that Craig sings in the latter half of the song "I saw you..." is one of my favourite things he has ever written and I wanted the music to be devastatingly loud and slow."
Bring the noise, indeed...