And Overshadowed, Flames Smother!

Weyes Blood — And In The Dark, Hearts Aglow

(4 Dec 2022, commissioned by Shawn Zod)

And In The Dark, Hearts Aglow

I was fully pumped for this album, even knowing nothing can be reasonably compared to Titanic Rising. It’s quite directly a sequel to it, with the first few melodies seeming to reference “Wild Time” one of the closing tracks of titanic rising. The same atmosphere and soundscape is carried forward, but it is lacking in what made Titanic Rising one of my favourite albums of 2019 — a year which blessed us with now legendary albums like E (Ecco2k), Come In (Weatherday), All My Heros Are Cornballs (JPEG), Igor (Tyler), Caligula (Lingua Ignota), Norman Fucking Rockwell (Lana) and even Magdalene (twigs)! To put it lightly, it was an amazing year for music, but even then Titanic Rising rose above all.

Maybe it was those masterful chord progressions, she sure as HELL made sure she caught everyone by their heartstrings with hooks that swell and embrace you in its beautiful little baroque soundscape. Her sincere, bittersweet and heart-warming themes, her pain wrapped in hope, she exuded this unforgettable motherly love that was so so hard to find anywhere else. And the words she spoke were treated to the same degree, they felt big as ever — profound in its sheer warmth.

Titanic Rising

It was foolish of any of us to expect And In The Dark, Hearts Aglow to be anywhere near on par. Listening to it comes across like the B sides of a masterpiece rather than the real deal. Titanic Rising is just it’s overachieving twin you hate for being hopelessly more successful than you at just about everything except video games. It’s... sad. Not a bad album in the slightest, but destined to be forgotten regardless. The catchy movements are stripped down for a more background-y inoffensive ambient soft rock approach, which is undeniably pleasant but could never stand a chance to be even noticed against its big sister. There seems to be a more abstract and vague structure to the whole record, which makes the whole thing feel empty and floaty. Every track on Titanic Rising felt like it had a destination and a purpose, but the same cannot be said at all for this new album.