“Once, the ground was opening up/Life a rift in the world/Standing at the edge of its abyss/Staring down, I saw myself/Speechless, I heard a voice/Rising up at me/Singing a rueful song/Admonitions from deep within”. The search for the inner self can reflect the loss of someone who had been with them in these parallel worlds that can hit you like a ton of bricks. For Sweden’s own Jonathan Hultén, he’s one of those artists that pushes you into the abyss to make his listeners confront their demons and reflect the path they chose.
His latest album Eyes of the Living Night, is an aesthetic, yet surreal release to the Kscope label with unbelievable results. When Jonathan left Tribulation, a band he started 16 years ago in the year 2020, and replaced by his friend and guitarist Joseph Tholl after releasing their fifth studio album Where the Gloom Becomes Sound, he wanted to prove that he was more than just a metal guitarist, more than being a band that he founded back in 2004.
He had released two studio albums on Kscope; Chants From Another Place in 2019 and The Forest Sessions in 2022. With Eyes of the Living Night, each of the songs that Hultén has composed and arranged, puts you in this ethereal trace, by blending into the cold, dark grey night that you are about to walk into.
From its sombering, turned meditated atmosphere nod to Anathema’s We’re Here Because We’re Here which sounds like a continuation of their song ‘Universal’ that comes to mind in the ‘Afterlife.’ Then there’s the spooky synth-folky acid arrangement with Hultén singing through a Leslie speaker for ‘Falling Mirages’ as he continues to tell more stories in campfires that are about to be told.
Once he strums his acoustic guitar and sings to the gods in the style of a gothic version of David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World-era that comes to mind in ‘The Dream Was The Cure’, he’s asking the storms to come through as he fights through the heavy weather and massive rain that hits him hard. You can tell that Hultén is not backing down without a fight on this.
The opening epic of ‘The Saga and the Storm’ sets up the rivers parting for the ghost of darkness taking us on a heavier, mellotronic journey into the sea of doors with its militant drum arrangements and walking through each of the passageways that takes us in these darker corridors that is quite startling. The drum machine and guitar work, makes it worth exploring as the sun comes out of the horizon, reflecting a moment of clarity to bring all of the themes to life.
When I think of the dystopian harpsichord waltz for the ‘Song of Transience’, I think of the final dance that is occurring in this mid-18th century steampunk vibe as the city floats into the outer limits before the eerie, ambient of action-packed heavenly wonders of ‘The Ocean’s Arms’ are about to fly across the heavenly sky and not let anyone tell you what to do, and ignore the others who try to let you down.
The John Lennon-sque finale of the ‘Starbather’ comes landing on Earth’s crust with its Marc Bolan lyrical texture as Hultén pours his heart and soul on this song with some unexpected time changes for a brief moment on the guitar, before it takes a whole other world that speaks of Brian May’s arrangements and the lullaby that comes ahead all of its own.
Each and every track on this album is well-crafted and well-written. Hultén has proven to be such an amazing artist on his own term to keep the pace up with more and more incredible results. And with Eyes of the Living Night, it is probably going to be on everyone’s top 10 in the weeks and months to come in the year of our lord, 2025.
