The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s an old
\nsaying, but it’s still very true.<\/p>\n
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois’s own Absinthe Blind are proof of
\nthis, as is their latest effort,
\nSolarshift<\/i>. While they have moved away from the richly
\nlayered sonic attack that made up their debut effort
\nwhen our flashes sway<\/i>, they have moved into a more
\npop-oriented vein – and while I do miss some of the layered sound,
\nthis is still very good.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist\/guitarist Adam Fein, guitarist Tristan
\nWraight, bassist Mike Zolfo and drummer\/backing vocalist Seth Fein
\n– have not abandoned their alternative roots in the least; this is
\nstill an album that challenges the listener to keep up with the
\nmusical waves it throws at them. But where
\nwhen our flashes sway<\/i> used layers of guitars to hook the
\nlistener, on
\nSolarshift<\/i> it’s the vocals. Adam Fein has greatly improved
\nin the last year as a singer, and it shows on this album.<\/p>\n
The opening two tracks, “Now We Glide” (which seems to have a
\nfalse start in the first five seconds of the track – was this
\nintentional?) and “Place” are enough to lock you in for the entire
\nalbum. However, I couldn’t help but be thrown by the fact that
\nAbsinthe Blind’s sound had changed, and it took me a little time
\n(as well as a partial re-listen to
\nwhen our flashes sway<\/i>) to get comfortable with it. Even now,
\nsome seven listens into the disc, I don’t know if I’m completely
\nused to it yet.<\/p>\n
The one challenge of
\nSolarshift<\/i> is that it requires more than just passive
\nattention from the listener; some of the songs tend to blur
\ntogether, making it hard to recognize just what track you’re
\nlistening to. I noticed this happening between “Distant Song,”
\n“Shade Winter, Shade Spring” and “Not My Queen” – all good tracks
\nthemselves. But I don’t like the idea that an album is passing me
\nby and I’m not noticing it happening.<\/p>\n
Absinthe Blind does take some chances by adding in one
\nadditional vocalist (Lynn Canfield) on “Fantasy Loss,” a track that
\ndissolves into the beautiful instrumental “Celestial”. Also,
\nhearing the use of violins and cellos is a nice touch – and one
\nthat is thankfully not overused.<\/p>\n
\nSolarshift<\/i> is an album that may well break Absinthe Blind
\ninto larger markets – that is, if those stations are willing to
\ntake a chance with them. (Face it, you don’t hear the Cocteau Twins
\nmuch on Chicago radio; I don’t know how it is in the rest of the
\ncountry.) And while this album does take some time to get used to,
\nespecially if you’re familiar with the band’s earlier work, it
\nrightfully should be the album to make Absinthe Blind a major name
\nin the alternative world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5938],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36203","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-absinthe-blind","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36203"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36203"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}