“The album arrives and ends on a meditative sine wave – a nod to the looming sense that this depression, while temporarily lifted, will return as it always does. A faithful dog. Another winter. A record that has been written and will continue to be written in terminal loops.”
Anguish is set to a low simmer; tendrils of mind tenaciously grasp onto depression’s relentless waves. On Beyond the Reach of Light, Drew Zercoe (as Field of Fear) hones in on the duality of (dis)comfort that occurs when stuck in a state of throbbing numbness. And how in the depths of depression, you find yourself swimming in a different kind of reality soup. Its industrial noisescape shrouds the head in an all-consuming fog. Pain and numbness bubble and shift strategically between harmful and seemingly harmless guises, overwhelm followed by paradoxical bliss— and you realize you have forgotten to breathe.
Beyond the Reach of Light maintains listenability through moments of respite in tracks like “Cold” and “Lost,” and its swift transitions between tracks. No extent of this harrowing valley is left unhaunted. All emotion is left out in its rawest, least symbolic form—and where no language can interfere.
