Density and volume are peculiar notions when people find themselves catching their breath in the midst of a musical journey. The chemical elements seem to fall away when the listener decides — knowingly or unknowingly — to succumb to the listening experience, as if something akin to floating in a vacuous space while being submerged in a translucent tank of light.
IV (Part 1), Spectral Lore’s 18th outing, is a quest through a thicket of conversant moods, at altitudes beyond the highest clouds and lowest troughs of the earth. Ayloss’ blessing, if one may refer to the compulsion of conjuring, is that as a music-making entity they wield the ether profoundly and prolifically. The compositional thoughts feel measured but rich, the scene-setting substantial yet airy, leaving room to catch the deliberate gasp.
There is a substance here that feels like classical composition through the eyes and ears of the ancients. A visceral ambience that is folkloristic in its nature, yet also an opening into a cave in the empyrean mountains encrusted with unfamiliarity and newfangledness. It’s an introspective look at the notion of a spiritual war and warrior. “A New Road Ahead” proclaims
“There must be something greater to it all / Fear of death has made us turn against life /Embittered tyrants devouring the world itself / The voice of the conqueror calls for more and more / But we have discovered a different kind of light”
The march of these feet and the beating of this drum feels righteous in the face of a world on fire, as though a wave of water rushing down the mountains to cleanse the plains and the proverbial emotional drought this universe has been disheartened into.
This is an ambitious and powerful work that must not be taken lightly — as it ushers in a new age of musicality, the bar for which goes beyond the tropes of the genres tagged at the top of this writ. As one ventures into the locales and morphemes of this album, there is an exhilaration in knowing that the namesake suggests a continuation in the bountiful campaign.
