I LIKE TRAINS' first new music in four years arrives in the form of a breathtaking soundtrack album for A Divorce Before Marriage, the feature length documentary that centres on the lives of the band over a similar time frame. It is fitting for a film about a band striving to balance career and family commitments, that the soundtrack was recorded in just two intensely productive days. With freedom and spontaneity comes the feeling it could all fall apart at any moment. The soundtrack is largely an exercise in restraint. Skeletal piano melodies and unsettling atmospherics are the predominant mode, echoing the slate grey Yorkshire skies, which play a prominent role in the film. Much of the score was recorded in single takes with very few overdubs. Working on instinct, there is an aching intimacy to proceedings. The creaking of piano hammers, the shuffling of feet and the sound of a band living on their wits are all very much in evidence. When I LIKE TRAINS do let loose with the sonic arsenal on which they made their name over a decade ago, the results are all the more devastating.
