Spotlights ‘Love and Decay’ Review: Brooklyn trio’s sophomore album offers new insights into their unique musical landscape.
Brooklyn’s Spotlights made big waves with their 2017 full-length début album Seismic, taking a disparate influence of post-metal, shoegaze, space rock and goth that made them one of the most refreshing new acts in metal.
One cursory listen to the band’s new release Love and Decay shows that while it’s as heavy and densely layered as its predecessor, there are more moving parts, musical left turns, and dynamic shifts, adding new layers of compositional and soundscape complexity.
It also marks their transition to a trio, with the addition of drummer Chris Enriquez joining founding members Mario Quintero (guitars, vocals, synths) and Sarah Quintero (bass, vocals).
Click here for my 2018 podcast interview with Mario Quintero
As a result the album needs time and attentive ears to appreciate the unique musical stew provided, rewarding multiple listens. This includes opener Continue The Capsize, where oceanic guitars collide with glistening synths that suggest Sigur Ros and Explosions in The Sky jamming with Sunn O))).
First single This Particle Noise opens with swirling guitars and androgynous dual vocal harmonies ala My Bloody Valentine that glide over the cavernous piano-flecked mix, before groove metal guitars barge in midway to amp up the heaviness.
Until The Bleeding Stops comes across like a love letter to 90’s alternative from its grungy opening riff to the harmonized guitar outro that recalls the dour grandeur of Failure and The Smashing Pumpkins.
Xerox is as heavy as it is airy, simultaneously soothing and brutal, topped with a thrashy ascending riff progression, while The Age of Decay and Mountains are Forever offer studies in dynamics: shifting and mutating throughout that expose both the band’s unique songwriting skills and the musical chops that bring their complex sound to fruition.
They tie it all together on closing track The Beauty of Forgetting, a 10 minute tour-de-force incorporating industrial elements, acoustic guitar, bell-like synths and cooing vocals that lull the listener into a hypnotic spell before a sludgy riff and careening percussion take the song into a gloriously dissonant conclusion.
The ability to distill and incorporate so many musical elements into a sound that is uniquely theirs is what makes Spotlights so appealing–they are accessible yet challenging, and while Love and Decay shares musical DNA with Seismic, there is a true sense of progression that takes time to take root.
This makes it well worth the auditory investment to discover and embrace Love and Decay’s beautiful and bruising charms..
