Blackwater Holylight : "Not Here Not Gone"

 

So far, I have really dug everything this band has done, and it does not take long for me to conclude it is not likely Blackwater Holylight is going to steer me wrong with this album either. Driven by fuzzy overdrive and the languid croon of Sunny Faris, coasts in the middle of the bong worshipping rumble. Sure, elements of shoegaze and psych rock come together at varied points as the song progresses, but it moves more conventionally than previous efforts. Thankfully, not abandoning the jammy flow that has characterized most of what I have heard from them before, is still very much in play to create a more organic feeling. 

Things get maringally darker on "Involuntary Haze", but that, along with the tension lurking under the bass line, is all I really needed from them. It is a very well-mixed album, as many sounds coexist, with room to breathe. Sometimes Faris's voice sits further in the layers of guitar than what you might expect from your average radio rock band, but here it makes perfect sense. "Bodies" has a heavier groove, but not in a more metallic manner, just driven with more sonic heft. "Heavy, Why" is heavy as the name suggests, but from a little different angle of the throb as the vocal melody casts a more dreamy shade onto the canvas. 

"Giraffe" is an interlude with a more trip-hop feel. This contrasts "Spades," which is the most metal song on the album thus far. 'Void to Be" is a darker indie rock feel with moody, haunted guitar parts. There is a more sluggish drawl to "Mourning After." It drifts into an atmospheric drone that swells into the sunset. This is where the albums eneds wit ha folk touched flavor of post-rock that is not unlike what Emma Ruth Rundle does. While these final two songs might have to grow on me mood-wise, as they contrast the more grooving drive of the album as a whole, everything is balanced out, so I will go ahead and give this one a 10 as it feels like their most solid work yet. Dropping on Suicide Squeeze Records.