“I buried you in a song only I hear.“
Emoviolence is a strange and surprisingly diverse genre. You have your old classics like Orchid and Destroyer, Destroyer paving the way for your new heads like drive your plow over the bones of the dead and New Forms. The musical spread is pretty big! But do you see Orchid and Destroyer, Destroyer writing the same blast beat-filled noise in their forties? Whilst Void is an incredible EP, it’s not really emoviolence. What if seasoned veterans wrote music today that was stranger and filled with more math than both of those bands? Members of From a Second Story Window and The Heartland have come to answer that question.
From a Second Story Window and The Heartland were hidden gems within their genre. If you were a fan of niche math and grind music, you definitely knew Not One Word Has Been Omitted and The Stars Outnumber The Dead. If you weren’t in the know before, DIY vinyl label titan Wax Vessel brought their names, along with others, back to the forefront, putting respect back on the names of these bands, who most likely did not get paid for their work, as well as putting a new set of eyes on them. This led to alumni working together to make new music, and this isn’t something new for the label either, with it also being the launching pad for powerhouses such as PSYCHO-FRAME and Killing of a Sacred Deer, with Calm & Secure looking to quickly join the ranks.
Everyone already knows Sean Vandegrift and Johnathan Thompson mastered their craft in their previous bands. Just take a look at Frontier or Delenda! But they luckily wanted to explore their musical capabilities with Glass in the Mouth of the Sun. You don’t hear a lot of emoviolence written by musicians with experience, so that idea alone leads to such an ethereal experience. They explored every single avenue they could throughout the album, with “Corpse With My Face” standing out as a prime example. While Calm & Secure certainly take some preternatural, chaotic turns, Glass in the Mouth of the Sun has some of the prettiest moments sprinkled throughout it as well. The stark contrast of these two sounds might be alienating to the average listener, but if you want to explore a sincerely eerie and deliberately crafted album, you will find so much to love.
The track that perhaps encapsulates the album best is the debut single, “It Fell From the Sky”, with its opening act being a beautifully elegant spoken word piece and airy instrumental, luring you into a sense of security. Once you finally feel comfortable wrapped in your diaphanous bubble, they immediately cut to throat-slashing screams and jackhammer speed blast beats. It may feel very congruous, but you can tell how deliberate this was from the band. Every second of this album is calculated and purposeful, just like “It Fell From the Sky”. Vandegrift and Thompson know what they want to invoke in the listener, and they make it look effortless.
At thirteen minutes in length, this is a full album experience. You can tell just from the artwork alone that this is an album you need to listen to in one sitting. While songs like “They Built Me With Nails” and “Without Light” are cool to listen to on their own, they hit much, much harder within the context of the full album surrounding them. The same can be said for the gracefully fragile sections, such as “Liminal Static” and “Sleep Paralysis”. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that you’re doing the album and yourself a disservice if you don’t listen to the transition between “Liminal Static” and “It Fell From the Sky”. You’d be skipping over something truly special. Once you listen in full, Calm & Secure leaves you feeling anything but, and after finishing the title track, you are left with an uneasy and bittersweet feeling. These emotions are tough to invoke, especially with emoviolence, but Calm & Secure makes it seem like they’ve been doing it their whole lives.
If you are not unfamiliar with the genre or the oozing talent of the band, a lot of the band’s choices throughout Glass in the Mouth of the Sun might come off as puzzling and bizarre. Take “Corpse With My Face” for example, a two-minute track with spacious and borderline jazz drums and spine-chilling visceral screams – very polarizing! A lot of people won’t get this, and that’s okay. This album isn’t written for everyone to enjoy, but if you are interested in listening to something complex and avant-garde, you will certainly find plenty here to love.
At the end of the day, Glass in the Mouth of the Sun is a victory lap of a supergroup wanting to push the envelope on a brand new sound. Calm & Secure know how to masterfully craft their sound in such an articulate way that it feels wholly new. The love and care that each member has for this project seeps through in every single moment and makes it that much more compelling. If you’re a fan of emoviolence, the members of other projects, or just a fan of smart and deliberate music, Calm & Secure is the band for you. Given just how impressive this album is for a debut release, and the star-studded alumni they’re amongst at Wax Vessel, we can’t begin to imagine what could come next from this project.
9/10
Glass In The Mouth Of The Sun is released on Friday, January 9th, via Wax Vessel and will be available on streaming services and for vinyl pre-order on the same day.