Your favorite television show might not be back for a new season for another two years, but VK Lynne continues to busy herself with the furious flurry of a restlessly creative mind. She has two irons in the fire today.
Sapient Scar - Dolores
Here's the thing about pain, or "Dolores" when we want to dress it up so it feels like an invited guest; just like how scars last on our skin longer than the lipstick outline of a kiss, pain is the most lasting of our emotions. Forgetting the people and moments that hurt us is sometimes impossible, only hidden until we relapse into memories that seep blood once again. For some of us, that pain comes from watching humanity prove the philosophical doctrine that we are 'rational animals' to be a fool's thought, while for me it comes from recent realization there may only be two people in this world not related to me (and barely more who are) who remember me when I am not forcibly reminding them. In either event, music becomes a form of therapy wherein we dull our senses and vent our emotions, hoping to survive long enough to see the sunrise as something other than a threat again.
That is the foundation of Sapient Scar's music, which makes it a different take on VK's artistic honesty. She has always bled her truth into her songs, but Sapient Scar does not attempt to gloss over the ugly parts of that truth with a polished sound that wants to lift our spirits. David and Allie's guitars are dark and dense, thumping muted notes and ringing melancholy chords. This is rock/metal played with the house lights turned down, forcing us to confront the things that are easier to handle when our eyes are blinded.
Over the course of these five songs, the band alternates between heavy rhythms that smack us upside the head to pay attention, and ethereal darkness that requires our focus. The result is an ebb and flow that resembles the night tide, moonlit blackness that laps closer with each wave, slowly enveloping us before we realize how much of our safe harbor has eroded. VK's ability to project power and vulnerability at the same time shines through on "Pay Forever" and "Silence", where her tone cuts through like a bat-signal for people who need a heroine. That might not come as "Silence" warns we might be on the verge of hearing the doomsday clock ringing, but a soundtrack for an apocalypse is a fitting way to go out.
We heard the mission statement when "Weak Is The Weapon" was released, a song stronger and more forceful than the people it takes to task. That carries into "Protectors" and "Beware The Whisper", where Dave and Allie provide chugging riffs that establish grooves and fill the mix, and VK fits her vocals into the spaces between the pounding. She sings on the former about people who believe they are doing good by protecting us, but from what they cannot say. There are people who know nothing who claim to know better, and VK ends by asking us repeatedly "Who are they saving?", because the answer is likely that they are trying to save themselves from a world that has shifted past their narrow vision. On the latter, VK uses the band's power to warn us about the quiet voices that seep into our minds when our defenses are down, that can speak loudest once we find ourselves listening to the silence.
VK has spent her career defying expectations and refusing to be categorized. Sapient Scar is the most direct musical project she has been a part of, and perhaps that is the most daring thing to be done. This band offers no excuses for not hearing their message, so perhaps people will finally listen. They should, because much as Bruce Dickinson created a new but enduring chapter when "Accident Of Birth" and "The Chemical Wedding" were released, Sapient Scar could do the same.
The "Dolores" EP releases on October 2. Pre-save it here.
The Devil's Blind Horse - Sister
The past never dies, it merely hibernates. That isn't an actual saying, but perhaps it should be, given how much we see remnants of history bobbing up to the surface with undying buoyancy. Musical history never dies either, constantly being recycled and refurbished so subsequent generations can experience the sounds as something beyond relics of bygone days. The Marshall amp and Hammond organ sound was a key element of classic rock, but it was nearly entirely absent from my formative years. Recently, as Deep Purple has had a renaissance I don't quite understand, and Europe washed off the scent of "The Final Countdown", that vein of classic rock has been producing ore again.
The Devil's Blind Horse is pulling from that mine, mixing elements of classic hard rock with psychedelic ambience, creating a swirl of sound that reminds me of the season of "The Twilight Zone" that opened with the spinning spiral. Opening with what sounds like cowbell leading into a bluesy groove, we're transported to a different time and place, one where the power of rock and roll can once again save the world. That was never the case, but the world was simpler in the past for letting us get lost in the music without feeling like everything would collapse into a quantum singularity of suck if we didn't keep up to date on how close we were to the reckoning.
Alex Knoll's guitars, along with the organs and synths, sway from one texture to another, taking us through a journey tinted by the ghost of prog past. The riff has elements of Kansas circa "Carry On Wayward Son", the solo is a slow burn, and the ringing chords are drenched in echoing layers of sound. As VK's voice reverberates over all of this, she reminds us we are all Satan's sister, and we ride along that proverbial road with rock and roll by our side. The good word has been corrupted by charlatans speaking with forked tongues, and playing the lamest of music, so perhaps it is time we remember questioning the wisdom of a supposed 'plan' might be the most human thing we can do.
"Sister" releases on October 7.
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