Friday 3 April 2020

ALBUM REVIEW: Garganjua, "Toward the Sun"


By: Peter Morsellino

Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 17/01/2020
Label: Holy Roar Records




“Toward the Sun” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Transcending
2). The New Sun
3). Mire
4). Transcendence
5). Light Bearer
6). Controlling Waves
7). To Ascend (Awakening)


The Review:

The true mark of an album of substantial creativity is the listeners ability to interpret it and form their own connection with it.  Garganjua's epic “Toward the Sun” provides a perfect example of one of those albums. While I cannot say for certain what the group was leaning into in creating this piece, it's floating highs and crushing lows certainly create a narrative that simply begs to be interpreted. In my opinion, this is an album about darkness, and how it can swallow us whole.  More so, it's an album about the light that peeks through that darkness, and how we can grab on to it.

Introductory track “Transcending” offers up a beautiful overture for the listening experience ahead. Solemn guitars create a dreamy atmosphere while an ominous voice over introduces the bleak tone of the album.  The New Sun” continues down this path, offering glimpses of darkness with fleeting moments of light.  Anger consumes the deep sadness presented in the music before falling back into its persistent melancholy. 
Like angels intermingling with demons, this hard soft dynamic provides the centerpiece of the album. Beautifully melancholic melodies intertwine with crushing low tuned doom riffs.  Light, ethereal vocals float gently atop the crushing sludge.  All of this comes together seamlessly, painting a bleak portrait of the depressive mind.

Transcendence and transformation play a major thematic role over the course of “Toward the Sun”.  This is played to perfection in the penultimate track, “Controlling Waves”. With a much more triumphant tone than the preceding pieces, Garganjua sheds its darkness with a newfound fervor that carries into the beautiful closer, “To Ascend (Awakening)”.

“Toward the Sun” is an emotional onslaught of beauty and despair that begs to be interpreted. Give this one a listen and give it your full attention.  Garganjua want to show you something within yourself, and if you let them, you just might learn something.



“Toward the Sun” is available HERE




Band info: bandcamp || facebook