Glare of the Sun

Glare of the Sun

Theia

Lifeforce Records

June 21st, 2019

Glare of the Sun (Austria) is atmospheric heaviness that draws from post-rock and doom. In this music, which has a gentle heaviness, the guitars are used for the creation of moods. Of course, this music does not attempt to overwhelm the audience with power chords, speed, chugging, shredding or obnoxious loudness. If anything, it could be thought of more along the lines of a question: “Do you think that you’d like to feel, experience something that is musically different?”; that difference is the area where you can begin to explore what they are doing. Patience is necessary because the album is some 66 minutes and the 12 tracks do not have titles, except for the use of Roman numerals I through XII. For this band, they don’t want the titles of the songs or the lyrics to be the main thing. The idea is to listen to the vibes and let that be the main thing.

Listening to the album and reading the lyrics, it is not clear even what the lyrics are saying because, for the most part, the vocals are another layer of the music, not the centerpiece. These lyrics are rather abstract. Some of the lyrics are whispered, and some are growled, some are sung, but in all cases there is a sense of absence, like the vocals are not there to catch your attention but to make you feel a sense of slow, subtle moods of watching the waves of the oceans or the clouds moving across the sky or something else distant.

This album is heavy, it’s heavy in the sense that is heavy post-rock, it is doom-ish, and it’s an inward-looking heaviness. Patience and let go. facebook.com/glareofthesun/