Artist: Unsheathed Glory
Title: Featherfey
Type: Album
Label: Digital
This album was nudged in my direction by the artist with a kind Bandcamp code a little while back. Not a name I had encountered but I never let that make a difference. A little inspection with involvement on the horizon from WereGnome records and Dale Of Shadows, and (amongst other things) knob twiddling by Hoarfrost and Fen Wraith on some guitar duties and vocals from Allunia Khaluna Kam this is also in deep and fine company indeed.
But what won me over was eleven seconds in to the opening title track. You know those moments when a simple change of key and suddenly, unnoticed, the music has your heart held in its palm. That is what happened here. A little lilting melody line with a lovely hint of fuzzy distortion in the back ground and then the synth wash shifts key and…you are plunged into emotion and a whole new world. The magic of vibrations, of sound. There is a curious urgency to it but so gentle that it has pulled you along unnotice. And when we get the percussion and the full blossoming of the sound it is hazy light through the green canopy but with so many memories and spirits clustering around. A little prog sprinkle is just the perfect dusting…
‘Forests Of Light And Sounds’ moves in slower places. The forests always moves at its own pace, time dancing around it to a tune only the trees understand. Ethereal and that strange mixture of delicate edges of leaves, perhaps, and the stoic presence of the ancient trees themselves. Emerging into ‘The Plains Of Soulessness’ is as haunted as you would hope, a careful treading as the dark, smothering dungeon synth closes in and in the shadows encroaching the hint of lost voices prevail still… So we blunder into the ‘Swamp Of Deception’ as though lost in the realms of Dark Souls. Tinkles of light taunting you to step from the path, perhaps. Distant drums from ,lost soldiers forever marching…
We need to leave.
At this point I should note that each track come with its own unspoken lyrics, the tale of the Hooded Traveller but I want to leave that to you to experience for the first time when you listen to this album because it is so good. Strange, dark in places and full of that urge of exploration and, perhaps revenge.
‘Castle In The Mushroom Tree’ feels like a place to rest and yet there is growing sense of determination here. The drums beat deep and solidly. Shadows flicker and hold and
I begin to feel like an intruder here as the intent is dark and focussed and perhaps we become ‘He Who conjures Death’. Subterranean delving, whispered vocals swiftly brushing words across the echoing cavern but few catch as it seems to search, delve, hungry for the goal as the music gathers strength.
‘Decay In The Kingdom’ tolls the bell on the change. Dark piano sounds, sudden descent upon a place unprepared? It does not bode well as ‘Tunnels Through The Heartwood’ separates into ‘i: Hope In The Search’ a careful and soft passage, strangely comforting. And yet we reach ‘ii: Revelation And Annihilation’. From that feint and delicate hope, the riff descend like a rolling wave of horror. A fantastic twist, an intense turn of punishing guitar and wailing synths like souls crying out and others revelling in the destruction. And as quickly as that wave destroys the peace settles but in layers of melancholy and defeat.
What an ending indeed.
This is dungeon delving of the highest order. Beautifully realised and with a real storyteller’s heart. If you read the words along with the music the second time you listen to this that will show you just how lyrical and erudite Unsheathed Glory are when it comes to music as words. It is a true musical adventure and I urge you to go enter into this with stout heart. Things are not always…. clear….
Gizmo
