(We present Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by Austin-based Glassing, which was released last week by Pelagic Records.)
Twin Dream was a perfect album. Glassing are perfecting the art of perfection with From the Other Side of the Mirror. The heaviness here is more biting. The melodies are more textured and haunting. These are conclusions I came to only four songs in.
Granted, a piece like “Sallow” is more of an ambient interlude, but “Defacer” has serious sonic teeth, and can have you head-banging before your second cup of coffee. With Twin Dream what they were doing was more easily defined. It had hardcore kids making atmospheric sludge. This time around more colors of sound are being explored.
They tap into the place where shoe-gazing black metal meets the more eerie moments of sludge. “Nominal Will” would not sound out of place on a Deafheaven album. The vocals shriek and the drumming creates a moving barrage while avoiding blast beats.
If you have read any of my previous reviews here, you might be aware that I feel when musicians can invoke darkness with their instruments that is the pinnacle of heaviness. For it becomes not just being able to dial in a sound, but striking deep emotional chords that conjure images of mental illness and capture the feeling of crushing depression made flesh. This is what they accomplish in the song “Ritualist”
Then the album begins to descend into harsh outbursts, from the frantic thrashing frenzy of “As My Heart Rots” to another return to black metal on “Circle Down”, though they do not linger on the blast beats for long as they eventually build things up to a tempestuous tension as the song climaxes.
The first half of the album found a lush atmosphere counterbalancing the more unsettled explosions. The latter half is more volatile and confrontational. They drone out the ambience going into “Kestrel Goes”. It’s part of the journey, not unlike the way expansive sounds sprawl out on an album like The Downward Spiral. These indulgences are paid off with songwriting on songs like “Wake”, which closes the album in a manner that gives open-minded fans of heavy music almost everything they could want in a song.
Sure, there is more black-gazing going on here than in the last album, but the songwriting is even more refined, making this an album that despite the emotional weight it hits you with is an easy entertaining listen with a great deal of depth. Glassing show you can make “extreme” heavy music, and still bring melody and songwriting hooks to the table. This album raises the bar for other heavy releases this year.
https://glassing.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-other-side-of-the-mirror-2
https://www.facebook.com/GlassingBand/