Lightning Dust
Spectre
Western Vinyl
After a six-year hiatus, Vancouver-based duo Lightning Dust return with their fourth album, Spectre, a beautiful, haunting, dreamscape of songs.
The opening track βDevoted Toβ is a swirling, ominous,mood-setter for the rest of the album, parts of which had me thinking of fellow electronic duo Boards of Canada with its android, edge-of-the-world bleakness, but the remainder of the albumβs arrangement reveals a breadth of other styles as well.
Tracks range from the driving, indie rock style of βRun Awayβ to the somber country-tinged songs like βLed Astrayβand βA Pretty Pictureβ to beautiful piano ballads like βInglorious Fluβ and βWhen it Rainsβ, all of which are threaded with the electronic elements that are a feature of Lightning Dustβs previous work.
The closing song β3am/100 Degreesβ bookends the album well and comes in at over seven minutes. As a dark space jam, it rises and rises in intensity until finally collapsing into a slow, beautiful, serene trance-like state that acts as an effective moment of catharsis to conclude the album.
The result of all of this is a beautifully-conceived album that is ghostly and reflective, with lyrics and an atmosphere that evoke the dreamy feeling of finding oneself stuck in the wrong place and struggling to get out of it. The stillness of the ending suggests that escape or transcendence is a possibility and here punctuates a very fine new piece of musical art from Lightning Dust.
ArtistΒ Links
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: LIGHTNING DUST – SPECTRE
Dan Kennard