This sucker is loooooong gone in the physical format (but we all know 99% of you just go steal your music anyway), and that is truly a sad shame because this double CD collection from Life In The Dark is quickly becoming an essential component of my listening habits of late (partially an obsessive trait on my part but also speaks to the volumes with which this collection has grabbed my attention); seriously, you missed out on this (though it is available for download from the label and I suggest you go do that now) because there may not be another arresting album like this from a newer artist in quite a long time.
Gloomy comfort wafts from the speakers (a perfect rainy day soundtrack and possibly the soundtrack to someone’s depression, though this could plumb that individual deeper down the pipe given the circumstances) in two entirely different modes depending on the disc that is playing, and while that may sound strange, The Sunya Is Rising really is just one side of the coin and Limbs In Gloom is the other; but listening to this as a whole (back to back or what have you) shows how this is all works from the same outfit, and Life In The Dark seem perfectly at home with these two parts being made for each other. The Sunya Is Rising is comprised of a duo of songs (“The Sunya Is Rising”, which has some excellent remixes included by Planning For Burial, Greys, Njiijn and Sequences, and “Sunshine Feels Alien”) that take their time in developing over long passages that are introspective no matter how soft or loud the droning and ambience may get; there is an emotionally arresting quality to the music that can be thought provoking (if giving one’s full attention to it) or simply pleasant to have in the background. Limbs In Gloom contains much shorter compositions (in comparisons to its companion here), but each song sounds like a blissed out obliviated dream; or if you will one giant heap of a whole atmospheric nirvana because there is no way that I could ever listen to just a track of this disk (it is definitely all or nothing), and in reality you have no idea that separate tracks pass by as Limbs In Gloom plays because it is all so engrossing.
Somehow, The Sunya Is Rising / Limbs In Gloom is not just laden with its swirling atmosphere interweaved with an emotional depth that can induce your own emotional response, but the record is so infuriatingly catchy that I find myself losing hours at a time to it all on repeat; Life In The Dark has created a body of music here that is incredibly easy to get lost into no matter what you are doing. This album may be under consideration for one of those “surprise of the year” type releases that blows the minds of those that find it and spread the word like wildfire; this is just the beginning.
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