A Storm of Light

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

Neurot Recordings 2009

The sinister, serpent-like spoken word intro and interludes(Law of Nature 1, 2, & 3) over stark instrumentation sows together the thick doomy tracks on the sophomore effort of Brooklyn's A Storm of Light.  Josh Graham's vocals are dreamy and powerful in the same breath, he sounds like a man resigned to a fate, slow and painful.  Amber Waves of Gray is sluggish, with guitars like molasses, and trudges like rusty sentinel through rain-soaked trenches.   The Light In Their Eyes drifts ethereally and on the wings of saddened violin and a martial beat until breathy synths and sharp crackling notes pierce the weighty atmosphere of the song.  Cool and calculated, Trouble is Near innocuously slinks in under the radar with until it explodes with stone-dead vocals and shrill hammering that pound their way through the veil of darkness that surround them.  An air of mystery and despair surround Across the Wilderness as symbolic chimes and gypsy female vocals form a ritualistic texture to the track.  Giant riffs. like scarred tors piercing the barren landscape crush everything underneath as they topple under their own weight.  A Storm of Light's second album, a solemn ode to environmental destruction and shambling riffs, is fairly cold and feels like fading emotion, life.  A bit of monotony sets in towards the album's middle though i think this helps achieve paint a mood of a planet floating in the face of extinction.  There is a bleakness to Forgive Us Our Trespasses that belies the lyrical content, lifeless and cold.