Tábor

Love is a train wreck, don't expect death. Wait for the dawn. It comes on a frosty Easter morning - it is as if the album Valley of Stars by the Prague four-piece Tábor was recorded for it. This comes three years after their debut record Liebe. During that time, Adam, David, Kateřina and Magdalena have been making typical atmospheric songs for Tábor, imbued with the sound of old harmonium, sifting and cultivating what they sowed on Liebe. 

Valley of Stars was created at the end of last October in the Tropical Cell studio, located in Prague's Kasárny Karlín and is released on the Pilsen-based Day After Records label. The members of the band, whom we may know from other established bands on the Czech independent scene (Bahratal, Oswaldovi, Vole, Or and others), have fully developed the mantric nature of their compositions. They reflect the past years, in which newly acquired parental duties and unexpected events have been written into them. The atmosphere of the album builds more slowly this time, the harmonic vocals are given more space, the bleakness is replaced by moments when one can breathe again.  

There is a strange timelessness in the Valley of the Stars, the land they have decided to inhabit. A place where one can encounter characters from children's nightmares and other creatures, hidden corners and meadows. Its exploration is carried out in eight stops, slow and focused. Even the Valley of the Stars harbours a certain ominousness, more harmoniously, without a creeping hopelessness. The (rounded, delicate) language of the poems does not lose its punch, the passage of time is written into it, with the seasons changing according to quite different rules.

A headlong flight to life through the Valley of the Stars. And burn a few soul candles along the way. The strange timelessness of cooling autumn days and nights.