We Lost The Sea
Departure Songs
Art As Catharsis
Release Date: Out Now
Review by Jeremy Edwards
Departure Songs is the third album from Sydney post-metal group We Lost The Sea, and is their first offering in their new incarnation as an instrumental band.
The album is an inadvertent concept album: the journey through life; vacillating between the highs and lows but emerging at the end with renewed potency and vitality. The album title gives it away, and song titles such as The Last Dive of David Shaw and A Gallant Gentleman draw inspiration from a previous tragedy in the band.
The highlight is the penultimate track: Challenger: Part 1- Flight. This song makes up a complete narrative, with distinct chapters in each movement. It’s a 23-minute journey, encompassing strained silence with repetitive, single chord stanzas. It builds with barely audible melodies and peaks with noisy, guitar-driven bedlam which coerces you to follow the emotional odyssey to the very end.
Relying heavily on repetition for impact, the album treads a fine line between progression and cacophony. There are periods that almost lose your attention, but the feeling as the last track goes silent is one you will remember.