Review Summary: I take a breath but this time it's not for me
In the second half of Peace in Death i, clamor and anxiety drop out and everything in the body descends into that shaded tree from youth, that one thing, the warm safety you felt, gentleness you keep locked away. Soon a pulchritudinous saxophone melody enters and repeats to carry you to the next memory, another tangible spirit, am floating in the air, going somewhere new. During the climax of The Tree We Rest At ii, you cannot breathe, there is an ocean lying on top of you, rocking you slowly back and forth, as paramours drown we drown together, the natural longing of the female voice atop mountains of distortion and bloody ugly pure love, who could ask for anything more? Souls is an album built on kinetic drones, in both literal and metaphysical senses, it is a prime case of an overly grand scope realized, exclaiming at you, "I could be a novel or a film!" What we have instead are seven songs and a poem.
Souls is a narrative of sound, following two beings as they grow together so intimately and reclusively they are torn into intense spiritual and incorporeal experiences, confronting their morality and dissociating from their natural states into something more profound. It is not that much of a hyperbole to call Souls an unrivaled odyssey in terms of abstract musical love stories. This esoteric nature is made coherent through the music itself, which has all the beauty, creativity, and idiosyncrasy to back up a musician who simply had all the appropriate inspiration and intent inside him to create something monumental.
Although Souls is largely a "drone" album, it does not adhere to any particular genre and prefers instead to build melodic soundscapes from standard rock instruments, voice, and expansive percussion. The songwriting is largely focused on timbre and dynamics, and often contains memorable themes or motifs that are just enduring enough to match the tremendous urgency of the music. Noise is a huge factor in creating Boring Bathtimes' mammoth sound, and occasionally even to an aggressive degree, with swallowing walls of bright red tumult. The way noisy drones seamlessly coexist with inventive and accessible songwriting is one of the most refreshing approaches I've heard in a long time, not to mention that each track has its own unique voice and temperament that does wonders to advance the narrative while remaining cohesive.
Trailer Park i is an early stand-out, with an enormous and boisterous percussive intro that could or could not be danced to, all by our prevailing hoagie Ollie Aldridge. In the context of Souls, this track is unique in that the transitions between sections are deliberately disjointed, giving the artist full reign to switch between moods on a dime. The tribal jubilee from squishy British boy immediately goes into a standard acoustic verse with some saucy licks, a very familiar approach for BB introduced by the opener and a majority of his past works. But, whereas the opener builds the acoustic motif into a nodding, stretching, and cacophonous lullaby, Trailer Park instead takes the melody into realms of doom and down-tuned electric guitars that wouldn't sound out of place on a Nadja record. After this broots mosh fest erupts into noise the song is concluded with a luscious bass driven groove, topped with reverberated female vocals. This section is possibly the peak of the first half of the album, recalling notions of bands like Swans or Self Defense Family, but with an entirely different statement, and an entirely different voice. Some guy named Michael Snoxall plays a simple but driving drum beat that ties the scheme together before finally blending and fading into noise once again, to an end.
Tracks and sequels follow suit introducing new yet familiar ideas, since Souls is so emphatically thematic certain motifs will reappear, but to the means of some other expression. Each song is crucial to tying together the central thesis, which all concludes with the final twenty-two minute track, A World of Dense Air. It begins with a picking pattern and premonition, sacrificing the tenderness in favor of the colossal. Jacob Scheppler and others carol in a massive brooding fashion, belting the album's title with a celebrated melody over a meaty climax featuring some breakneck guitar soloing. This final remark is where Ollie fully realizes his size and power as a songwriter, the crescendo dismantles itself into a echoing tribal rhythm before dissolving into the terminal drone, a complete closure. I don't have words in me to describe the last thirteen minutes of this song so I'm not going to try. Closure is a rare thing, life repeats memories in our heads relentlessly and we live and love in these circles. If you've watched The Lion King or read Harry Potter you probably know what I mean. So yeah. Souls. Where are they? In my butt.
