Light Bearer
Silver Tongue
Alerta Antifascista/Halo of Flies
I’ve not been too familiar with Light Bearer in the past, admittedly, but their music draws on heavy influence from significant elements of post-rock and post-sludge – chiefly reminiscent of Cult of Luna or Isis, weaved with the sorrow of Sigur Ros, My Dying Bride. Yet to pigeonhole would be a tad unfair, given the expansive, conceptual nature of their music (please visit their official site to read about their ideologies, which goes into further detail than this review warrants). ‘Silver Tongue’ is a huge album, clocking in at almost eighty minutes, comprising six songs of which only one – an interlude – clocking in under the nine-minute barrier.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of this album at first, admittedly, and it wasn’t until I departed on a long walk to work under a very black cloud (personally, not meteorlogically) and stuck this on for the duration, where its true majesty opened up. ‘Silver Tongue’ is often a trudge of sadness, with the string section working their bows to great effect on ‘Beautiful is this Burden’ and ‘Matriarch’. After the tolling effect of the album’s first five songs, it feels like a salvatory moment when the title-track finally arrives, with a riff slightly more upbeat in tone and finishing things in supreme style. It’s still aggressive in its vocal delivery, still heavy in its tone, yet, due to the main riff on which it stands, it almost opposes the slightly downbeat musical aspect of this album, as though it’s reached a light at the end of the tunnel, the glory at the end of the journey.
For me, that light, that glory was just the end of that walk. But albeit one coped with more attentively for giving this album the respect it deserves. It’s not the easiest album to digest; taking up nearly eighty minutes, and not everyone will be able to get through it in one sitting or even at all. But at two years in the making, I have undisputed admiration for the time and effort put into its formation, and the vision it strives for is certainly recognised. And while the most part it trudges the path of depression and gloom, its overall outcome is thoroughly rapturous, for which even the darkest soul is not shielded from.
Peter Clegg
Buy/download ‘Silver Tongue’ here
Stream it below:
