Album Type:
Album
Date Released:
December 30th
2014
Label:
Tofu
Carnage Records
A Holy Land
Beneath A Godless Sky – track listing
1. A Holy Land
2. An Umbral Plain
3. Beneath A Godless
Sky
4. Across Brilliant
Sands
Members
Dustin
Eva Vonne
Hoop
Lee
Theron
Review:
Sans
Soleil’s debut LP is the best instrumental record of the year.
Period. No reason to bury the lede here – this debut LP by the
Austin TX five-piece is haunting, beautiful, lush, and rocking.
Obviously indebted to post-rock acts like Godspeed! You Black
Emperor, The Dirty Three, and the soundtrack work of Nick Cave and
Warren Ellis, A Holy Land Beneath a Godless Sky is a psychedelic
journey across a soundscape that is both alien and all too human.
The
first track, A Holy Land, is a sprawling prog-laced introduction that
rockets into high gear around the midway point, evoking beauty and
destruction, leading into the shadowy dirge of An Umbral Plain. Eva
Lynne Aldridge’s viola is often the focal point of the band’s
work, but Sans Soleil is not a “gimmick band” by any means.
Rather, Aldridge works as both melodic lead and harmonic counter,
sometimes retreating so far as to be mistaken for a plaintive voice
in the background, as guitars take center stage in Beneath a Godless
Sky.
Throughout
every track, Sans Soleil feels like “world music,” and not in
that icky way that Yanni felt like world music for your aunt’s
creepy boyfriend (the one with a greasy ponytail and lots of opinions
about crystals). Rather, Sans Soleil feels worldly, a group of
musicians on par with the Kronos Quartet, who can evoke middle
eastern chants one moment and Delta blues the next. A Holy Land
Beneath A Godless Sky, despite the strength of individual tracks,
feels like a unified piece throughout, as closing track Across
Brilliant Sands makes clear. Both heavy and mournful, the song is
the apotheosis of the album: a beautiful work that consistently feels
like it may slip into chaos. Beyond metal, beyond psychedelia,
beyond instrumental, beyond genre, this album is simply a rare gift
for anyone who appreciates and loves transcendent music.
Words
by Mark Ambrose
Thanks
to Catharsis PR for sending us a promo. The album will be
available to buy on Vinyl from Tofu Carnage Records from December
30th 2014.
For
more information
