That Cold Grey Light

"The past is dead. We hardly let it live." The agony of losing someone young, of life being cut off before one is able to live and form a personal history. Everyone deals with losing a loved one in different ways. Some curl up into a ball, some go into seclusion, some lash out, some deny... we all know the stages of grief, right? And then some get their musician friends together, huddle around the memory of a shared friend, and make an album that is both elegiac and healing. Both by working out in the studio how they feel--hence the sudden tone shifts, not only among the tracks but sometimes right smack in the middle of a song. Ethereal, progressive, beautiful. Excellent synth and string work. Vocals full of pathos. Bursts of joy, moments of heartbreak so delicate you need but brush it and it bleeds.