SINGLE REVIEW: Hiram Audio Labs – Plateau
‘Plateau’ feels like stepping into the quiet just after a storm — that strange, weightless moment when everything around you is still, yet something in the air hints that the calm won’t last. Hiram Audio Labs taps into that exact emotional limbo, crafting a track that sits between resignation and release, exhaustion and clarity. It’s heavy without being loud, reflective without being fragile, and charged with a sense of waiting for the ground to shift.
The song opens with a sinister hush: guitars lurking in the background, low rumbles buried so deep you can almost miss them, and vocals that drift in with a husky, half-ghosted presence. There’s a feeling that the track is barely there — like it’s whispering from the edges — yet that restraint only makes everything feel more ominous. The sparsity isn’t emptiness; it’s tension. A held breath.
Then the whole thing erupts.
From the shadows comes a full-body blast of sound — expansive, dense, chaotic in the best possible way. The drums hit like a sudden landslide, the guitars tear open the horizon, and the vocals sharpen into something snarling and alive. It’s the sonic equivalent of the rush that comes when you finally stop holding it all together and just let go. That moment where stillness gives way to catharsis.
‘Plateau’ thrives on contrast: quiet vs. loud, shadow vs. exposure, reflection vs. raw emotional force. It pushes and pulls, expands and contracts, constantly shifting between near-silence and full-throttle post-rock ferocity. You can feel the narrative arc — the slow climb, the moment of realisation, and the crash of everything you were holding back — even without needing it explained.
What makes it so affecting is how intentional the whole construction feels. The begining creeps and murmur like doubts you’ve tried to ignore, while the explosive sections feel like the moment those thoughts finally demand to be heard. It’s catharsis disguised as chaos.
‘Plateau’ is a rollercoaster of restraint and release — an alt-rock track that captures the exact moment clarity arrives, not quietly, but in a wave that knocks you sideways. Dense, looming, unapologetic, and brilliantly executed.
