“At least I’ve already made it.”
If there is any true embodiment of sonically contrasting amalgamations, it is Blackwater Holylight. Los Angeles based doomgaze outfit has deftly intersected grunge, psychedelic rock, goth, and a myriad of soberingly uplifting ambience since 2016. While it’s anomalous for artists to be at the crossroads of genres this divergent, it’s even more rare to execute influentially differential sound as Blackwater Holylight have managed to do for the last decade. On their fourth full-length entry, Not Here Not Gone, existential dread and hypnotical hopefulness land simultaneous blows in what has not only turned out to be Blackwater Holylight’s magnum opus, but a masterclass doomgaze showcase that exhibits contradictory euphony to an alluring degree.
Instantaneously, Not Here Not Gone pulls listeners into an indefinite state of mesmerism. Sunny Faris’s serotonin-laced vocals, in dreamscape sync with the instrumental support of Mikayla Mayhew, Eliese Dorsay, and Sarah McKenna, keep a concurrent stream of impending doom and introspection flowing from front to back. Opener “How Will You Feel” sets a clear precedent for Not Here Not Gone with its Nirvana-adjacent chords, Black Sabbath-like distortion, and effective shoegaze synths. Supplementally, in the brief moments where Blackwater Holylight resign to brighter gleams of musicianship, this is not exclusively achieved through atmospheric means, but rather a blend of tonal shifts in string work, most notably on “Bodies”. Not Here Not Gone, coinciding with the incongruent methodology Blackwater Holylight has consistently followed since the very beginning, practically self-refutes with every successive note in a very uniform manner.
It’s up for plenty of subjective discourse as to how productive interludes tend to be, yet Blackwater Holylight are a sparse example of truly tying a record together with a standalone respite. “Giraffe” aligns with Not Here Not Gone’s oscillating backdrop in every sense. Utilizing a Pink Floyd-reminiscent beat and keys that sound like the bottomless pit of a black hole, “Giraffe” juxtaposes its beginning, middle, and end with a void-like progression at its bridge that’s sandwiched between faded iterations of quiet echoes into the unknown. Given how Not Here Not Gone is architected, “Giraffe” does not exist to merely fill space, but to exacerbate a drearily wistful outlook.
The obligatory doom elements are forefront, as well. Riffs ala Toni Iommi and Faris’ angel of death reverbs that paint Not Here Not Gone in a haunting coat of poetic dreadfulness, never cease in pace, and only vary in demeanor. “Spades”, “Void To Be”, and “Mourning After” retain this disposition in totality, if only to give the impression of nominal optimism through McKenna’s vibrant synths. Both literally and metaphorically, Not Here Not Gone is a doomgaze paradox where feeling imminent destruction, idealism, both, or neither is at the sole discretion of the listener, given Blackwater Holylight’s maximalist approach to musical contrariety.
In some respects, the aforementioned technique may result in sensory overload for some to a default. Those who make it to the end of Not Here Not Gone will still have to contend with the density of the progressive, epic closer, “Poppyfields”. In what feels like the final passage into a gaping veil that Blackwater Holylight has been setting the pretense for with every preceding track, the seven-minute journey in “Poppyfields” grazes the edge of several event horizons regarding Not Here Not Gone’s ambitious doom-backed aura. As each second passes, we are dragged further down Blackwater Holylight’s dark depths, and some of us could drown sooner than others.
Creating a doomgaze record with obvious notions of buoyancy seems like a fool’s errand. Then again, Blackwater Holylight have been doing this for almost ten years. Not Here Not Gone is the pinnacle of their mastery of this exceedingly niche craft, to the extent that you could confidently argue there’s no one doing it better, and perhaps no one else doing it at all, as of this very moment. Antithetical composition that rebuts itself at every turn and manages to amplify its impact because of that is by all accounts, improbable. Somehow or other, Blackwater Holylight found the pigeonhole necessary to blueprint enlivened doomgaze from the start. Not Here Not Gone is the culmination of a long-winded honing of their artistry, and will stand above all contentious projects for a very long time to come.
9.5/10
Not Here Not Gone releases on January 30 via Suicide Squeeze Records and can be pre-ordered here.