SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: URNE – SETTING FIRE TO THE SKY

URNE
SETTING FIRE TO THE SKY
SPINEFARM RECORDS

When it comes to URNE’s sound, such textures thrive on the tension between emotional weight and the wonder that embodies their diverse melodies, which have come to make up the firestorm of grit, swagger, and grandiosity of their sound. The London trio has how demonstrated their ability to fuse sludge, groove, trash, and post-metal on their new release, Setting Fire To The Sky, molding it into a sound that is both primal and strangely transcendent, one that pushed the boundaries of Serpent & Spirit yet still uniquely ties the past and the present’s disparate elements and finally ignites them into one towering, effervescent flame.

Produced by Justin Hill of Sikth, mixed by Johann Meyer, and mastered by Fascination Studios, Setting Fire To The Sky comes with a sense of purpose. With more melodic and progressive energy at the helm, their new album is bigger, bolder, and more emotionally stimulating than anything the band has attempted before. This isn’t a band that is hellbent on flexing their creative talents; it’s a band that’s grown from experience and is willing to stand in their own power, eager and hungry to explore more.

From the opening moments, “Be Not Dismayed,” “Weeping To The World,” and “The Spirit, Alive” make it clear that this album was built with melodic heft that could stand alongside URNE’s grungy, aggressive, yet urgent instrumental backbone. With each track lending its post-metal and progressive atmospheric energies to more open, festival-tinged soundscapes and tranquil guitar riffs coated with the scents and twinkling nostalgia of summer days, URNE starts the album off with a kind of energy that feels triumphant and confident, yet under its melodic undertones lies an overtone of heaviness. Such a dichotomy reveals a sound that feels battle worn, triumphant, and yet hopeful, a momentum that is carefully crafted throughout Setting Fire To The Sky.

SPILL FEATURE: THE TORCH TO MOVE FORWARD – A CONVERSATION WITH JOE NALLY OF URNE

Across Setting Fire To The Sky’s next few tracks, “Setting Fire To The Sky,” “The Ancient Horizon,” and “Towards The Harmony Hall,” continue to weave in traditional heavy metal concepts, galloping drum rhythms, and sharp guitar picking rooted in fast, aggressive classic thrash elements. However, what makes “Setting Fire To The Sky” and “The Ancient Horizon” so gorgeous technically is URNE’s ability to take these concepts and turn them into something more intricate, delicate, yet powerful, an expansion of what A Feast on Sorrow introduced. Exposed and cinematic, tracks like these, alongside “Towards The Harmony Hall,” give the band’s emotional core space to breathe without losing the passionate grit that each track has brought so far. Instrumental excursions in “Towards Harmony Hall” are fitting for its name and dial in this dynamic, as the echoing, reverbed guitar melodies and deep, robust drums dance around one another, creating one of the most impactful listens at this point on the record.

Nine-minute odysseys such as “Harken The Waves,” featuring Mastadon’s Troy Sanders, unleash a different kind of growth for the band, one that feels like the teacher is passing the torch to an understudy, adding a gravity to the track, yet beautifully accenting the band’s identity. It’s a moment on the record that is emotionally impactful in two ways, as it shows the band is gradually making bigger strides in their career while also honing in on the darker, more sensitive instrumental and lyrical tones the album so brilliantly encapsulates. Tracks like “Breathe,” featuring Jo Quail, are breathtaking, blending seamlessly with URNE’s palette. One of the biggest melodic meditations on the album, URNE pushes the emotional gravity, vocally, lyrically, and instrumentally, making the listener feel its beginning swells of sadness and exhales a level of powerful catharsis towards the end, not really felt until now on Setting Fire To The Sky.

Setting The Sky On Fire isn’t just another record about grief; it takes that sadness and pain, reclaims and repurposes it into something grander, beautifully making those emotions feel public and raw. While many records have done the same thing, not many feel this open to the pain and hurt that exist alongside the band and its listeners. While the band has often written about these concepts with great emotional honesty, Setting The Sky on Fire isn’t drenched in apocalyptic despair; there is a broad sense of transformation that comes with beginning the listening experience to the end, which makes this record feel so different from their past releases. For those looking for a record that took its time to really look deep within, not only to be emotionally open but also to connect audially with its audience on a level not really felt on many records, this is a must-listen.

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