One of the things I love about vinyl is that the medium allows additional space for creativity. I don’t often talk about packaging on this blog, preferring instead to talk about the music itself, but it’s one of my favorite things about records.

In fact, it’s one of the reasons I started collecting vinyl in the first place—even before I was convinced of the sonic superiority. There are things that a packaging job can do to enhance the aesthetic of an album that a digital copy of the artwork simply can’t. Die cut sleeves, spot gloss, colored vinyl, post cards, etc.

But Infinity Mirror has one of the more interesting packaging jobs I’ve seen in a long time. This pressing is released on a picture disc that, when spun on a turntable, creates an animation.

And even though I haven’t been able to experience it with the same success as that video (I still haven’t figured out the optimal frame rate), it’s not a complete loss, as the music is really enjoyable anyway.

This record is textbook post rock with an impressive pedigree. They’ve taken lessons from the masters, and it shows. There are moments of Appleseed Cast, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, all without ever sounding too derivative. But even in the moments that are a little too reminiscent of other acts, it feels more like an homage than a ripoff.

I have racked my brain trying to figure out which Appleseed Cast song the guitar line in “Illumination Rings” was borrowed from, only to realize that it’s probably less that it was taken from a guitar part Appleseed Cast did write and just sounds like one that they would write.  Similarly, the dark, grooving “Memory Trace” sounds like it belongs on Hardcore Will Never Die, but You Will. And hey, wasn’t the cascading, cinematic “To Be Made As New” on the Friday Night Lights soundtrack?

I often feel like it’s unfair to talk about musicians using other artists as reference points (though I’m aware I do it often). As a musician myself, I’m well aware that every artist’s output is a distillation of their favorite art from others. Deftones have been all too open with their love of The Cure and HUM. But The Cure+HUM=Deftones is a pretty dismissive formula to talk about them (even if it is a little accurate).

However, post rock is one of those genres where keeping things textbook isn’t a bad thing. Where in most genres, saying that a band sounds like another band is enough reason to ignore them entirely, in post rock (and also shoegaze), that’s one of the highest compliments you can give. Post rock is one of those genres where almost everyone is chasing the same Platonic ideal. For many acts (and fans), the goal is to get as close as you can get to the purest form of the genre without crossing the lines around it.

And as far as Infinity Mirror is concerned, this is as pure as post rock gets. It plays to every convention of the genre without sounding cliche. Rather, those elements are used to create an album that resembles a number of post rock classics without ripping off any of them. Does that make this a post rock classic? Time will tell.

(and hey, that’s my friend Brian’s artwork!)