There is a gloom that is growing in the bones of metal once more. A faint light has been shining from a certain cavern, and its dwellers are getting ready to rise once more. Spring is here, the rains are pouring down, and the mood is heavier than sorrow. Cavernlight has returned and marked us with another single from their upcoming album titled “Gaze Into The Glow And Drift Into Time.”
The Wisconsin quartet Cavernlight has been delivering some of the best sludge/doom/post-metal the world has seen since they first unleashed in 2015. Their debut LP As We Cup Our Hands and Drink from the Stream of Our Ache is an exercise in cold, heavy sludge/doom drenched riffs and agony. Since then, the band has only unleashed a single in 2020. But as it goes, it is best to not rush quality. And as such, Cavernlight has been simmering in their darkness and is ready to show us a little more from the upcoming As I Cast Ruin Upon The Lens That Reveals My Every Flaw.
“Gaze Into The Glow And Drift Into Time” continues the band’s brand of heavy, slow, miserable, and crushing. The track starts out slow and heavy and moves into getting even slower. The fever breaks and as a guitar is strummed. Shortly the vocals follow and the song sticks to the business of being heavy. A switch up not long after and the song begins to rise in intensity. The bass and drums keep things on the lower end while the guitar strings get scraped. As it goes things come back around for a nice heavy serving of doomy/sludginess. Things finish on that heaviness and the track fizzles out.
For personal context on the track, Cavernlight had this to say about it:
"'Gaze' was another song from the album that we wrote very early when we decided the direction of the new material would be more aggressive and dirtier. It was fully intended to be simple and oppressive, to simulate the feeling of being choked by ones own emotions, which is what the lyrics discuss. Stifled, blinded, unable to process what's actually happening or why. Losing yourself to your own mind and allowing the dark to creep in. Panic. Formless despair."
“Gaze Into The Glow And Drift Into Time” is heavy, meditative, and drenched in dark energy. It is a slow burn from a slower band. Their brand sludge/doom has only gotten darker, but as a result, that pinhole light that shines out has also gotten stronger in their writing. If you are craving more of the cavern after this track, there is plenty of past material to dive into. And spelunk you should. This one is a crusher.
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