Spotlights ‘Alchemy For The Dead’ Review: metal-gazers contemplate mortality on melancholic new album.
The power trio Spotlights have become one of the most accomplished, thoughtful and assured acts in recent memory. The group’s unique blend of metal, shoegaze and space rock sets them apart from other hybrid competitors.
And on their latest album, Alchemy For The Dead (April 28, Ipecac), the band, consisting of Mario Quintero (guitar, vocals), Sarah Quintero (bass, vocals) and drummer Chris Enriquez, once again expand and refine their sound, furthering their musical evolution.
It’s also a concept album of sorts, as Mario clarified in the band’s press release: One of the major parts of our lives, is the fact we’re all going to die. Most people are terrified of it, some people learn to look forward to it, and some see it as a way out of their misery. Various cultures view it differently. There isn’t necessarily a story to the album as a whole, but each song deals with the theme of death. It could be fantasy such as bringing a loved one back to life or darker moments like suicide and deep depression. Then, there are thoughts about death overall in terms of the entire human race. The ‘Alchemy’ part plays more into occult themes such as seance and crossing the threshold between the living and the dead, or religious rituals that humans use to connect with lost loved ones.
That’s certainly a lyrically heavy theme, which works well within the group’s own sonic heaviness, as typified by opening track Beyond The Broken Sky, full of eerie thrumming synths, chiming accents and swirling guitar which comes across like a gothic version of Led Zeppelin’s No Quarter. It’s majestic, haunting and a perfect launching point.
It’s impressive how a three piece can create such a huge, densely layered sound, from the eerie downtempo goth of Ballad In The Mirror to the darkly euphoric Crawling Toward The Light, where grunge guitars and siren call synths collide with an automaton drumbeat to sublime alt-rock effect. The group even expand beyond their triad sound with False Gods, which benefits from a screeching sax solo from guest collaborator Ben Opie.
The album’s centerpiece is Sunset Burial, which shows the band at their most cinematic, augmented by trip-hop beats, Deftones worthy stabs of guitar, and tribal drums that veers into gorgeous dream-pop haze which compliments Quintero’s complex and ethereal tale of mortality:
Don’t close the curtain
Is it true that I’ll live forever?
Pray to everyone
For me, the music goes on
Wait a million days
and hope the cold doesn’t settle in tonight
Wait until the sun sets
We’re in this play again
Another life to live
Another moment gone
We’ll end this day again
There’s no more left to give
Will the music go on?
Repeat The Silence is another standout, with an odd-time signature rubbery riff and nihilistic lyrics: Connect the wires and kill them all/Then break the curse and burn the earth down. For Gen-Exers like myself, there is much to love in the group’s reinterpretation of 90s alternative metal through their own unique lens.
This approach also lends itself to the closing title track, with ghostly acoustic picking, ominous industrial sound effects akin to a warped car engine, and a huge buzzsaw guitar climax followed by a gentle coda, slowly fading out like a dying ember.
Quintero bookended his press release with a statement of intent regarding Alchemy For The Dead: I hope it inspires you to think differently, and get your mind off the day to day bullshit. Even though the themes might seem morbid and dark, as always we hope our music creates positivity. We all need to care for one another and all living beings on this planet, while we can.
Mission accomplished, as Alchemy For The Dead manages to offer both escapism, catharsis and a meditation on death that is both disconcerting and comforting, brutal yet beautiful. While the album may be preoccupied with mortality, this is a band very much alive in their growing musical vocabulary and expansive sound.