We Lost The Sea - Triumph & Disaster
A Closer Listen
The world is ending. We all know it. While writing this review, I learned that the American president had just allowed corporations to pollute water again. After all, who needs clean water? Who needs animals (save for those that taste good)? Who needs humans?
The album is apocalyptic, taking the form of a fairy tale. A mother and her son are living out their final day on Earth. Sydney’s We Lost the Sea scores their tale with alternating passages of aggression and sorrow. Their last album, Departure Songs, used history as its starting point; Triumph & Disaster visits the near-future. The shock is that it no longer sounds like science fiction. The science is real, even as our politicians deny it. Meanwhile, the earth is ravaged by hurricanes, wildfires, and the worst threat of all ~ us.
This album won me over with just one song, but what a song, alone worth the cost of admission. “Towers” is a quarter-hour behemoth, a statement of confidence by the band, who go all out like the musicians of the RMS Titanic, playing while the icecaps melt, a reversal of plot. The track is filled with the peaks and valleys post-rock fans adore, culminating in a piano breakdown that sets the stage for a savage attack: the drummer and four guitarists giving all they have, playing while the planet burns.
Many bands claim the word “apocalyptic” but fall short of the word “epic.” We Lost The Sea rises to the occasion. Track titles “Tower” and “A Beautiful Collapse” will remind readers of 9/11, a smaller desolation than the end of the world, but a significant marker; global readers may recall the Tower of Babel and the book of Revelation. The band is already six strong, but on two tracks they add trumpet, another link to that apocalyptic book. In Joshua, the priests blow the trumpets, and “the walls come a-tumblin’ down.” In Revelation, there are seven seals and seven trumpets. In the Quran, the trumpet is blown by Israfil, the angel of music; and then the world ends.
Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. “Dust” sounds like a lonely desert ravaged by nuclear fallout. Mother and son reminisce, hold each other, say their goodbyes. We Lost the Sea calls the album “a sad love letter to the collapse of the planet,” but it is also a farewell to love, and to every achievement we thought worthwhile, all downed by hubris. In “Parting Ways,” the band rouses itself for a melodic tribute to all that has been and could have been. The Doomsday Clock teeters at two minutes. But wait ~ this is a fairy tale, correct? This is science fiction? There’s still time for us?
Before we reach the end, there’s time for another quarter-hour Ghidorah, the blistering “The Last Sun.” Three minutes in, a deadly hum, followed by an elegy and a raging protest. The band leaves it all on the table. Every note that can be played is played. Every hit the drum can take, it takes. Just like the earth. But there’s a breaking point.
The album saves its sucker punch for the finale. The specialists speculate that we may only have two decades to turn things around, before collapse becomes inevitable. But what if their estimates are just a little off? “Are we really too late?” sings Louise Nutting in the only vocal track, a mother lamenting that all the efforts to make a difference were already doomed. The statement leaves the listener jolted and drained, picturing a barren earth, cracked and orange.
This is the last album you will ever hear. (Richard Allen)
Sat Sep 28 00:01:33 GMT 2019Angry Metal Guy
I’d like to paint you a word picture, if that’s alright; the setting is a sidewalk alongside a busy road. There’s a chill in the air despite the persistent sunlight, and yet, the day feels rather bleak. It’s early afternoon, and I have decided to embark on a rather lengthy walk. During this time I will be spinning Triumph & Disaster, the fourth full-length album from We Lost the Sea, and their second since the tragic loss of singer Chris Torpy. I load up the first song and notice something out of the corner of my eye—yes, I did see that right. The instrumental progressive post-metal album I’ve picked up has a fifteen-minute long opening track. Because I’m a terrible reviewer at heart, my brain does the only thing it can: it leaps to the nearest conclusion and prepares for a very long hour.
Fortunately, my brain is also capable of admitting when it’s wrong, and I’m happy to report that my initial (and entirely unfounded) dread was completely misplaced. You see, I’ve sampled a lot of instrumental metal lately, and I’ve found that far too often this genre pushes the patience of the listener beyond what it should. Without vocal hooks or melodies, it’s easy to lose the structure of a song, which in turn means the mind is capable of and prone to wandering, severely lessening the impact of the album. But We Lost the Sea refuse to let you go once they have you. “Towers,” the aforementioned opener, features just about the catchiest (albeit in a melancholy way) piano line I think I’ve heard in a metal tune, and its various builds and releases make for a surprisingly relaxing listen. While I maintain it doesn’t necessarily have to be fifteen full minutes in length, it justifies a lot more of that runtime than expected, and makes a great start to the album.
Triumph & Disaster by We Lost The Sea
Triumph & Disaster is a concept album, which is a bit tricky considering there are no lyrics present until the closing track. And yet, the story is there, a tragic post-apocalyptic journey that watches the last lights of humankind whimper out. The album explores twisted anger (“The Last Sun”), unfathomable sorrow (“Dust”), and complex emotional responses to events that are all the more powerful for not being contained in a language of words. At times, this is a minimalistic listen, dialing back heavily on the metal elements and letting quiet guitar leads just do their thing. Other times, it’s loud, defiant, and bleakly furious, switching between the two effortlessly. Speaking of which, guitarists Matthew Kelly, Matt Harvey, and Mark Owen all deserve some serious props for the work they’ve done, alongside bassist Kieran Elliot and Nathaniel D’Ugo, the drummer keeping everything together no matter how hectic things get. With no singer to hide behind, everyone in We Lost the Sea needs to bring their best work to bear on Triumph & Disaster—and they do.
My favorite moments on Triumph & Disaster are the ones where We Lost The Sea explores their sorrowful side. “A Beautiful Collapse” is extremely well-named; it’s exactly that—a stunning rising action preludes a sudden descent into despair that transitions beautifully into “Dust” when it finishes. These songs are all the more powerful for their relative succinctness; I find I’m more drawn to the shorter songs, which tend to also be morose in nature; “Distant Shores” and “Dust” feel like interludes alongside titans like “Parting Ways,” but they also work as complete songs in their own right, and they’re among the best on display over the 65-minute album.
Recovering from personal tragedy is never easy. It would have been perfectly understandable for We Lost the Sea to have simply disbanded in 2013 after Torpy’s tragic loss; it would have been understandable too if the band had recruited a new vocalist. Instead, they have become a truly good instrumental band. Triumph & Disaster is powerful and affecting in ways that make the lack of vocals a strength, rather than a weakness, or even something all that noticeable; this album is far more triumph than disaster, a deeply affecting journey, and an album I’m happy to return to time and time again.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Translation Loss Records
Websites: welostthesea.bandcamp.com |welostthesea.com | facebook.com/welostthesea
Released Worldwide: October 4th, 2019
The post We Lost the Sea – Triumph & Disaster Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.
Sat Nov 09 20:48:28 GMT 2019