A Storm Of Light

As The Valley Of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade

Written by: PP on 21/07/2011 22:07:20

If you're into slightly ambient and progressive music that takes its cues as much from post-metal as it does from post-hardcore, then recent and coming months constitute exciting times for you. City Of Ships have just released their newest opus following that style description, and genre pioneers Thrice will be coming out with presumably yet another masterpiece in a couple of months time. Then there are the smaller players like A Storm Of Light, featuring the ex-Red Sparowes member Josh Graham as the mastermind behind the band, who have already released a solid piece of post-metal oriented sludge/ambient metal in the form of their third album, "As The Valley Of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade".

From the get go it is clear that bands like City Of Ships and Thrice's newer material have been a major influence to the writing of this album. I'm told that they used to be far more sludge/doom inspired metal on their previous two albums, which would suggest this newest album is taking them to previously unchartered territories to the horror of their metal fan base (from what I could gather). Diving into a song like opening track "Missing", however, makes it instantly clear that we're in the same ambience-driven, post-metal meets post-hardcore perfection of the aforementioned bands. The vocals are drawn out and slowly worked into the atmosphere, using both heavier shouts and deeper cleans, while the noisy guitars are carefully constructed into the mix through feedback, distortion, and progressive riffing that builds magnificent soundscapes out of very little. And given the expansive mindset of the album's sound, it allows for a wide variety of different levels of heavy. From the softer passages to the punishing climaxes that explode after lengthy build ups, everything works very well together, making "Valley..." sound like a uniform album instead of just a collection of songs.

A few tracks, like "Leave No Wounds" for instance, sound extremely similar to Thrice from "Vheissu"-era and City Of Ships from their "Look What God Did To Us" album to the extent that the bands become interchangeable with one another, but for the most part A Storm Of Light steer slightly more towards their metal roots than their colleagues. Where Thrice relies on extensive experimentation and the incredible pipes of Dustin Kensrue, and City Of Ships goes for that rock-oriented progressive ambience, there are enough elements here pointing towards their doom background to make enough room for themselves to stick out. And though the record probably doesn't have any record-defining tracks in the same way as the two previously mentioned records, it's still a solid offering in the genre and one that's good enough to impress anyone into those two bands, and why not even the more post-hardcore oriented Sights & Sounds fans?

Download: Leave No Wounds, Collapse, Black Wolves
For the fans of: Thrice, City Of Ships, Sights & Sounds
Listen: Myspace

Release date 17.05.2011
Black Label Support

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