ALBUM REVIEW: Dimensional Bleed – Holy Fawn
The unity of shoegaze and metal has been fertile ground for quite some time, birthing a long list of innovatively dynamic bands with their recognisable sound. Phoenix-based quartet HOLY FAWN staked a daring claim on joining that fold with their hauntingly dreamy debut full-length, and their long-awaited follow-up Dimensional Bleed is only going to advance their cause to cement themselves as one of the most exciting bands in metalgaze.
The calm of opener Hexsewn feels like the quiet rumblings of a cosmic vessel being prepared before launch. Said lift-off comes with Death Is A Relief, a gorgeous distillation of the many things that HOLY FAWN do well – the DEFTONES-esque quiet-to-loud explosion, the combination of the digital and the earthy (in one section, the drums alternate between a huge sonic boom and a delicate finger snap), the emotive black metal shrieks during cathartic crescendos.
It is no great insight to say that HOLY FAWN like to layer a plethora of sounds and melodies on top of each other, but it is remarkable how airy and spacious their music remains throughout. You’ll run out of fingers on your hands before you finish counting all the concurrent parts that inhabit Lift Your Head, but not once do they tread on each other’s toes in the mix. Rather, they decorate the song like small ornaments – a brassy synth here, an angelic vocalisation there – which float in and out of sight like the ghosts that haunt the cemetery that Ryan Osterman is singing into existence. When the tension needs to be dialled up, it is the crisp drums of Alexander Rieth that step in to perform an almost-solo and provide a climax for the song. HOLY FAWN’s writing feels rich from one bar of the song to the next, yet tastefully sparse over its entire course.
The opposite movement from loud to quiet takes place in Sightless, whose heartbreaking screams buried deep into the mix – like torment heard through several dimensions – echo out into a pool of soft crackle and decaying distortion that resembles William Basinski’s famous Disintegration Tapes. This association with ambient music can be ascribed to the entire record. What Dimensional Bleed does really well is work across different levels of the listener’s attention without constantly demanding it. Rather, it floats freely in the sonic space and readily extends a hand to uncover its beauty when the listener is open to absorbing more of it. With each listen, a slightly different aspect comes into sharper focus. In as much as this can be said to resemble how someone like Brian Eno thinks about music, HOLY FAWN have created one of the most clear-sighted expressions heard to date of what ‘ambient metal’ can be.
The title track is the most immediate song on the record, sounding like the product of a jam session between THE CURE and CULT OF LUNA. The result is a haunting, cathartic post-metal tune that succeeds in saying a lot with a very narrow choice of notes – its only flaw being that it clocks in at a criminally short two-and-a-half minutes. Void Of Light is another highlight; with austere arrangement and generous sound processing, it hides more music in how the notes ring out and hang in the air, than in how they first come into being, before a climactic conclusion of pure blackgaze ecstasy. True Loss is shoegaze as a gospel hymn, with acutely delicate mixing accommodating the many soaring layers of synths, guitars and vocals. There is no dimensional bleed in this one, just perfect singularity.
HOLY FAWN have transcended the already spacious confines of their work so far, and crafted a majestic aural universe with their second full-length album. Dimensional Bleed is an encapsulating musical journey in a cosmos of tragedy, melancholy, pain and euphoria – one that will reward you with every subsequent listen.
Rating: 9/10
Dimensional Bleed is out now via Wax Bodega.
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