Biography

In the past years, Manila-based indie rock band The Buildings has developed a following for drawing inspiration from bygone eras, reimagining and synthesizing alternative tendencies to articulate contemporary hopes and anxieties. In their 2016 debut album Cell-O-Phane, The Buildings at turns channel erudite saturnalia, unleash freakish squalls, and blast raw bittersweet twee and angsty shimmering jangle. A bildungsroman, CELL-O-PHANE resonates for its youthful thrashing and elliptical narratives of a generation’s shared internal conflict. Rather than cower from the frightening and haunting specter of a sophomore slump, The Buildings consciously and wholeheartedly leans into the pitfalls and clichés associated with second albums. Heaven is a Long Exhale shows a band more comfortable with dialed-back dirt pedals, relaxed tempos, and longer running times, honest lyrics that betray a certain world-weariness following the frenzy and whimsy of juvenilia. Despite this ostensible “maturation”—swapping punk fury with languid drawl, walls of feedback with slide guitars—the band remains nonetheless playful, toying around with psychedelia and classic rock motifs, finding new ways to keep things exciting.