Dallas trio Shapes Stars Make! follow up on the promise of their self-titled '08 EP with These Mountains Are Safe, an album of broadly cinematic Sigur-Ros-meets-Radiohead post rock and progressive, often ambient-textured, indie pop. While the band's dreamstate lyricism and vocal melodies add to the overall theme of neo-psychedelia, it is the interplay of chiming, droning guitar riffs and echoing, scattershot percussive runs that make SSM's if not overly distinctive then highly effective instrumental chops such a cathartic listen. This is music full of grand gestures and dramatic flourishes, richly produced (by John Congleton) and immaculately arranged but still grounded with grit and sweat.

Lead track, the instrumental "Le Dodici", is three all-too-brief minutes of nimble, glittering chord progressions riding atop a pounding Bonham-styled drum foundation, layers of synths and bass lines moving in for a flurried crescendo. As with the EP, Mountains possesses both subtle shadings and wall-of-sound grandiosity, creating and then dismantling intricate musical atmospheres of mood and intensity. Shapes Stars Make! are clearly a band with a overstuffed grab bag of big ideas, blessed with both technical ability and symbiotic interplay.

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Shapes Stars Make! - "Le Dodici" (from the album These Mountains Are Safe)