Role Mach
Travels in the Interior Districts (Independent)

Role Mach has been a feature of Vancouver’s live scene for several years, but the many-membered ensemble only has a scattering of low-key releases to its name, including a couple of compilation cuts, a split 7-inch, and a 2009 collection of instrumental experiments. The band has now finally made a proper mission statement with Travels in the Interior Districts, a five-song EP that, with a generous runtime of 27 minutes, is almost long enough to be considered a full-length.

The record opens in grandiose form with “Via Delle Zite”, as a droning horn intro gives way to eastern-inflected punk grooves and an extended a cappella break in which frontman Patrick Geraghty—who also leads the dream-pop project Gal Gracen—delivers bizarre lyrics about “bullwhips in the sweatshop” in quivering sing-speak.

Role Mach revisits this horn-fuelled rock sound on the succinct “Jalna” and the apocalyptically ominous “All Roads Lead Into the Jungle”, but the highlights come when the band scales down its noisemaking for moments of quiet beauty. The eerie “Othello Tunnels” is anchored by simple bass plucking and tambourine tapping, and the arrangement subtly ebbs and flows with reverb-kissed guitar licks and dreamy psychedelic textures. Even better, closing cut “Shanklin Down” finds Geraghty strumming an acoustic guitar while a lonesome, jazzy horn plays a gorgeously simple melody.

Travels in the Interior Districts isn’t officially out until late March, but it’s available now on Role Mach’s Bandcamp page. Evidently, this won’t be the outfit’s only new release of 2014, since Geraghty has announced that another EP is on the way soon. Considering the scarcity of the group’s past output, it’s about damn time.