Quickspace’s third and (so far) final album, The Death of Quickspace, holds the dubious honour of being the only album a record store employee has ever tried to talk me out of purchasing. It wasn’t exactly strong—just a simple “You sure? Do you want to listen to it first?” To this day I’m not sure why she thought to question the album—did she just not like it? Did she somehow remember me, some podunk high school kid who’d wander in on the occasional Wednesday afternoon after school let out early? Did someone else return the album saying it was crap? Was it an especially difficult album to get into, or maybe something only for people who knew what they were getting into? Because I sure as hell didn’t—I bought the album largely on the strength of the Matador name and the one song I’d heard off the album, the very song I’m posting tonight.

For a while, The Death of Quickspace sat unloved and unlistened on my shelf. It seemed maybe that record store girl was right—it was too abrasive, too long, too whatever. But like many albums I’ve been able to reassess with the passage of time, Quickspace’s final album is now a favourite of mine for many of the same reasons I wrote it off before. The key to unlocking the album, actually, turned out to be “A Rose,” track six of nine but essentially serving the purpose of the penultimate song (closer “4″ is basically 30 seconds of purposeful guitar noise). “A Rose” used to pass in one ear and out the other, the layers of noise on top managing to blot out what is actually a gorgeous song. But one day it all clicked—I can even remember the sunny-afternoon car ride when it happened—and now the song serves as prime evidence for my case that the best Quickspace songs are space rock played in a lush meadow.

The Death of Quickspace’s biggest asset over previous albums is the proper recording quality—no longer does it sound like the album’s being played on a low-bitrate internet stream. And though it only has nine tracks, two of which sound like different versions of other songs and one of which isn’t even a song, the album covers a wide variety of moods and volume levels in a much more concise package than the 70-minute Precious Falling. The Death of Quickspace was a breakthrough for the band in more ways than one—in addition to the cleaned-up sound and the continuing refinement of the Quickspace formula, the album was also the first to get a reasonably wide American release via Matador. But for whatever reason, the band failed to capitalize on the momentum, instead deciding to disappear altogether after they finished touring the release. Since then the Quickspace name and Tom Cullinan have popped up here and there, but no one’s really sure if the band is dead, on hiatus, in limbo, or somewhere in between.