My third album from this talented crew, and its time for a review (poetry again, Tommy?) . The two previous releases were quite tasty, starting in 2018 with the Importance of Mister Bedlam and then followed by Silence from Signals in 2021, both critically acclaimed for their brooding disposition and artistic attraction. Keyboardist, guitarist, vocalist and composer Danny Sorrell is a soulfully introspective musician who has a brooding outlook and is unafraid to address the vagaries of human existence, both lyrically as well as colliding the sonic extremes wherever possible. Aided and abated in his deliverance with a luminary talent like John Mitchell is surely a stamp of high merit, as the mixing and mastering as well as assorted instrumental appearances construct the process with edifying surprise. The insertion of vocalist Sarah Bayley provides a master foil to Danny’s sorrowful expression, while drummer Graham Browne adds all the pugilistic percussion one could hope for. Though some love to highlight comparisons to Porcupine Tree or Anathema, I prefer to eschew pointless tags and favour advancing descriptions instead.
“Linter” functions as the ideal sonic anaesthetic, laying down a proverbial carpet of feeling and atmosphere before diving into the nitty gritty with the rousing “Operator” where the pace is immediately geared into raucous overdrive, no shilly shallying or dithering of any kind, a poignant stab into as both vocalist lay down their truth without compromise. “Null the System” is already getting a fair amount of airplay, a cornerstone piece that combines a harrowing sense of grace that revels in clashing with tectonic riffs that grind without sounding immature. In fact, the dense keyboard coverage displays a keen sense of strategy, as the ornate piano plays the role of elegant subservience to both sets of vocal sections, first Sarah and then Danny each hitting the higher plateaus of intensity.
What comes next is the vivid 11 minute “My Main Function” whose existence is explained in the title, a painful story both expressed and told with a desperate clarity, the lyrical content damaged by the toils of life, scars and bruises not always seen but surely felt. The burly guitar assault shoves any impertinence aside and the entire arrangement climbs into the sheer crests of resolute effort in reaching some survivable objective. The stark synthesized background adds all the ominous sensations one could except from a turbulent relationship with oneself; the shrieking malady of the crackling guitar solo only confirms the yearning for introspective validity. Sorrell offers quite the critical performance, choosing to emote either vocally or instrumentally on a profound level. The Browne drums pound the pavement relentlessly like a steamroller out of control, the majestic mellotron the only source of aural salvation, …perhaps.
“UI” shows another side, an absorbed melodic solitude, as if our ‘technology gone mad’ progression has turned many inwards, both young and old alike struggling with the inability to socialize organically, the willpower replaced by relentless information overload where nothing has any depth or value, coming across like waves of instantaneous non-gratification. Depression has become the scourge of our global society, too many unhappy humans who cannot smile or laugh anymore. This is a gorgeous slice of musical reality where Sarah gets to shine brightly.
On that rather grim note, the focus opts to concentrate on even gloomier evidence, to be found on the vaporous “If Else”, a floating sonic carcass of emotionless impressions expressed in darker tones, where cracking self-worth gets lost in the tunnel of despair. The drum work is so off the charts polyrhythmic that it just might even be viewed as cataclysmic, furiously entangled in a flurry of thumps and jabs that no one could possibly escape.
As if sitting idly on some lonely park bench, waiting to come down from the unshakable scourge of addiction, “Inheritence” is gently chaotic, as the colliding extremes of the lenient dual voices on one side and Browne’s helter-skelter drum shuffles blasting away in hopeless surrender. Pain expressed with incredible beauty is a bitter pill to swallow, which why the blues exists in all musical cultures worldwide, its part of the inhuman experience.
Haunting mellotrons and gruff guitar barrages vie for dominance with Sarah’s imploring voice pushing back with swooning elegance, “Pixel Shader” is another chapter in the ongoing battle between the achievements of the past and the apparently often fake (or at the very least highly distorted) promises of a digitally enhanced paradise. The problem is the attractiveness of negativity in a hyper-judgemental world where everyone has the overt right to be utterly stupid if the so desire. Only the number of likes and followers can be the ultimate supreme court of decision making, deciding arbitrarily (read algorithmically) who is right and who is nothing.
Not at all surprisingly, in lieu of all the nihilism some seem to crave, pushes back with astounding audacity, an anthemic “Nested Scratch” exudes hope, salvation and ultimate triumph, the Mitchell exit guitar solo exposed as a ringing endorsement for courage and stiff resistance to the bad-tempered rejections preferred to us constantly. We all live our lives with a heady combination of success and failure being the constant focus. Yet, I along with some of my best friends, have learned later the hard way in the course of our existence that only 5 letters (stars) count in the end, one repeated twice.
H. A. P. P. Y.