A SIDE
The first song hits you like a mellow 70s groove with legs. Trey’s guitar sounds like a trumpet in a Smokey Jazz Club. He’s drowning in a list of things we can all share. Thoughts – Feelings – all of the heavy ones.
“Ghosts of the Forest” kicks off a stutter step tip-toe like dance with soothing metallic harmonies of self-reflection.
That guitar though, it’s sexy like the sunset and heavy like an abyss.
Song Two continues the Wurlitzer-like rotating FX with lyrics of “Drift While You’re Sleeping.”
There’s something about the ascending scales later on that remind you of how special those Choral FX truly are.
At first I heard the Bass as Heavy and the Guitars in a Watery Grave, and I realize now that’s the planting of the seed that our dreams can bring…
If “Ghosts of the Forest” enumerate a list of grievances toward life, then “Drift While You’re Sleeping” is life.
Listen to a chorus of trees that have root growth and tell the story of their existence.
We are all one and love is the answer is a nice resting place to soak it all in.
“Drift While You’re Sleeping” continues as an epic journey in its own right seamlessly moving from groove-to-groove, and stage-to-stage in our collective living evolution.
Enjoy this wonderful album! I always listen twice, and man the second time feels good. Is that because of the edible I ate earlier? Sometimes we have to get out of our own way.
B SIDE
“Friend” reminds me of loss and misunderstanding. I feel exhausted by emotion and I’m tired of trying to prove myself.
It’s one of those grooves you just wanna have with your besties. You take it down a notch so you can dig in and then kick it into high gear all while communicating clearly and openly. Being authentic sometimes has less to do with a sense of self than it does with a tired soul trying to keep up with a modern life.
The band gives it nice resting ground to sink. This mellow bottom, and longing, a drowning and bursting with big guitar eventually sinks like a rock. Resting, there’s acceptance.
“About To Run” kicks off defiantly with a rising groove. It’s like a confession for being alive. Trapped regrets eventually give rise to explosive expression. So we resolve to act.
This heavy groove reminds me of a beast who acts out of beastly action. It does not think twice because it does not need to think twice. It knows what it wants and what it needs. “The ghost is always there.”
Where have I gone to? I’m “Halfway Home” and I’m really feeling these song transitions. I love an album that both rocks, and rolls onward like a story we can all relate to. Even if you can’t relate, you feel it. You feel something. There’s upbeat relief, with intensity, and rolling free. You know where you’re going, even if it’s hard.
There’s something that draws you in, and spits you out, but you go anyway. You want to deal with the source of things, and have a glimpse of the sun’s raw power. It’s refreshing, daunting, but you have backup. You’ve already seen and felt the worse parts of life, and you will conquer what’s left in order to be free.
Bent, but not broken.
C SIDE
My first thoughts are that this is a great road trip album.
I can see the “Long Lines” pass me by.
Calmly, I observe in my celestial craft. The voices express a range of emotions, scarred and uplifting.
A hammer, and sun, are the constructions of my mechanical view. There’s beauty in touch, and feeling.
So I am waiting… ready…
“Ruby Waves” is as Trey as you want Trey to always be. That drumbeat, specific lyrics, and mellow groove paint a truthful picture of life and death as if to say, they are the same thing.
Escape, truth, wonder, Fuck it! Go for it!
Dimensions are only barriers of space and time, and they can be transcended…
“It’s such a brief time we get to be here.”
“What was I so worried about?”
D SIDE
Out at sea, we drift so naturally…
A starry night, and watery magic…
It doesn’t get much better than this… there’s love, and trance…
A primordial abyss that you’re dancing atop, if that’s possible…
You are the abyss…
“Beneath a Sea of Stars” takes you on quite a journey…
If A, B & C set the stage, then now you are ‘live’ and rea-D-y to just be…
“And we’re free of time…”
The song gives plenty of space to groove and syncopate… and drift away…
The primordial ooze is oozing, and bubbling… it’d ominous if it weren’t so natural…
Suddenly, it has sprung free and is there to greet us in the form of morning birds and “phantasm.”
Views from a mountaintop bring activity, a mellow waking.
The ghosts are out to greet me…
They slide into the sea, guided by forces, oozing.
Hints of the ghosts give rise to an anthropomorphic dance. This is what we know. It’s “Blue! all around!”
It’s blueeeeeeee!
This is what we do!
The album exclaims by punching-in and aiming skyward.
Astral echoes of familiar resolve. Expect some nice organ on the coda to accompany you home.
And just like that, it’s gone, with an explosion to form your new home, here and now.
