Aural Aggravation

Ipecac Recordings – 26th April 2019

Christopher Nosnibor

Spotlights have covered some significant ground and developed a critical mass in a comparatively short time-frame: in just three years, they’ve gone from slipping out their D.I.Y. debut, Tidals, to touring with Deftones, Melvins, Quicksand, Hum, and Glassjaw to Pelican and Pallbearer, thanks to a feature in Brooklyn Vegan. And so the story goes that Ipecac Recordings co-founders Mike Patton and Greg Werckman fell under the band’s spell and signed them. And lo, Spotlights’ Ipecac debut, Seismic, arrived in in the Autumn of 2017.

Follow-up Love & Decay picks up where its precursor left off, and launches with a deluge of crushing weight, with ‘Continue the Capsize’ crashing on with a wall of simmering guitars, slow, pounding percussion, and shuddering bass, a slow, low-end orientated doom-laden sonic assault, over which taut led guitar lines build a web of tension… heavy doom meets post-punk dynamics… and then it all goes mellow. That gritty, dingy bass still churns beneath it all, and as dream guitars and vocals call to mind early Ride, the bass remains pure doom.

Hybridisation is nothing new, but on Love & Decay, Spotlights have hit a magnificent sweet spot that forges the perfect balance between wistful and weighty: ‘The Particle Noise’ is all the 90s shoegaze, slowed down, and rendered with all the throb, all the weight, and it’s the noise of particles shattering against one another. The vocals are melodic, laid-back and fragile, and while the guitars are layered, textured and luscious, they’re also dense, distorted and cranked up to the pain threshold. When the midsection hits, the sludge factor soars to 10 and the decibels rocket and it’s like a punch in the stomach with a mess of pulverising low-end which feels like a dangerous undercurrent dragging hard beneath gentle, lapping waves.

‘Far from Falling’ slips into proggy post-rock territory, with an epic slow-build and sustained crescendo. It’s somehow entirely unpretentious, and works in context: as the e-bow-driven guitar comes to the fore, the enormity of the sound becomes utterly captivating and wholly immersive.

Landing at the mid-point, ‘Xerox Mix’ is the shortest song on the album, and has the most overtly pop tones, but at the same time is propelled by driving grunge guitars, overdriven and up in the mix.

The second half of the album shows no let-up in intensity, and again maintains the balance between emotive vulnerability and brutal force, with ‘Mountains are Forever’ hurling forth a volcanic tempest in which the gnarled metal vocal is all but buried in a deluge of thick, molten guitar and pulverising bass.

It all guides the way to the final track, the eleven-minute ‘The Beauty of Forgetting’, which brings everything together: beginning with delicate, chiming notes, it builds and builds to a sustained crescendo that roars. And when it ends, I find myself feeling empty, and somehow altered.

Love & Decay sees Spotlights do shoegaze in the vein of Justin Broderick’s Jesu: epic, expansive, emotive, blending ethereal with crushing weight, it’s a potent cocktail that stirs deep emotions while vibrating the physical being to achieve maximum resonance and optimal impact. And that impact, while almost impossible to articulate, is uniquely profound.

And the bonus track, ‘Sleepwalker’, which appears on the physical editions, is definitely worthwhile, too.

AA