(((O))) Review: Blackwater Holylight – Not Here, Not Gone

It really does the heart good to stumble across a new band that stop you in your tracks with a record that simply reaches into your heart after one play. I felt this way with Not Here, Not Gone by Blackwater Holylight, a wondrously named band from Portland, now based in Los Angeles. Specialising in a weirdly exalting realm of seriously heavy doom guitars combined with beautiful airy vocals, this album hurts, but in the best way. As Sunny Faris explains, the album is “about how you can lose people in your life but still have their presence and energy around you”. Taking co-production duties with engineer Sonny Diperri, the collection has been lovingly created by Sunny Faris (vocals/bass/guitar), Mikayla Mayhew (bass/guitar), Eliese Dorsay (drums), Sarah McKenna (synths) and Camille Getz (violin). Mr Dave Sitek also drops some beats on the instrumental track midway through this beguiling record.

Opener ‘How Will You Feel’ aims straight for the heart from the get-go with a beautiful aching vocal and lyric from Sunny. The guitar tone is thick and heavy and the searing synths that arc high in the mix bring add a melancholic sheen. Sometimes simplicity makes for the most appealing art. A blizzard of distorted guitars and a soaring vocal is always going to be something I cannot resist, and the driving fuzzy chords in ‘Involuntary Haze’ carve into your cranium. Sunny pours out some remarkable adlibbed lines as the song winds to a close layering on the emotion.

The hefty riffs that bite hard in ‘Bodies’ make Billy Corgan’s finest sound saccharine with scorching intent and a craggy level of distortion. What a beautiful chorus too, as sweet melodies drop making for a stunning fusion of force and elation. ‘Heavy, Why?’ has one of those bewitched vocal melodies that Chelsea Wolfe creates, deceptively simple but absolutely chilling. Conjuring up images of cloaks, fires and moonlight the song switches into a phantasmagorical playground of noises and sounds. ‘Giraffe’ drops with a boom-bap beat and a swirling fog of excruciating noises adding a moment of calm, allowing breath before the lumbering guitars re-appear in the funereal ‘Spades’. I’ve got this far into the review without referencing Black Sabbath but the swinging riff in this song has a little something in common with ‘Sweat Leaf’. The guitar tones are just all encompassing as waves of riffs layer up for a wonderful sludge storm.

‘Void To Be’ lets shimmering clean guitars lead the way and the swirling melodies ring around Sunny’s yearning croon. Just when I thought my heart couldn’t take any more a haunting violin appears momentarily before drifting back into the ether. Now that we’re in this sleepy hollow of laidback songs the dreamy ‘Fade’ flickers like a flame in a gentle wind. It’s what I imagine Mazzy Star would sound like if they had distortion pedals and amps that went above four. The elongated vocals that drift low in the mix are a thing of beauty. When the final passage of searing guitars appears it’s truly stunning despite being played on a bedrock of two chords.

‘Mourning After’ literally rolls out of the speakers with some beautiful trilling piano amidst the shimmering clean tones. A squeal of feedback heralds a mighty storm of distortion for the chorus. Sunny stretches her voice with some wondrous soaring melodies. The stunning 8-minute closer ‘Poppyfields’ has a funereal opening as gothic guitars echo like ghosts in a graveyard. You can feel a brooding tension build as the drums scrape the ground like ravaging hands from beneath the earth. Now’s the time to introduce some black metal blast beats to the dirge. The guitars pulse like a horde of unleashed demons, with angle grinders. Having reached a nadir of fear the song drops in and out of a beautiful oasis of shimmering guitars, throbbing bass and a sweet reassuring vocal. My old friend the ghost violin drifts back for the final dramatic moments of this truly stunning album.

This album is absolute proof that you don’t have to be technically gifted to produce remarkable music. Built on a simplistic sequence of chords the beauty in this record comes from the attention to detail for guitar tones that border on the broken. Sunny’s voice is heavenly, yet every note sounds permeated with darker tones and feelings. You’ll maybe come away from this album with an overriding feeling of sorrow, but sometimes there’s joy to be had in the dark.