Voidstalker Sight in Shadow

I like Voidstalker, and I’ve heard a bit of their music already.

So what would I get with a Voidstalker album? Anything worthwhile? Anything I hadn’t heard before?

Well, there are ten songs in total, 5 of which I don’t believe I’ve heard before, so yeah thumbs up.

I get artwork, a design, a watermerk image with lyrics written over the top, an out of focus image of the singer, singing (That is what I beleive the image to be), that image is pretty thanks to green, pinks/reds and glowing light areas. The songs are listed “Clearly”, They could have been braver with the font… perhaps….

I get a picture that I made :eek:, Well, I am not worthy 🙂

I love the back image, showing light streaming out from the stage set.

For me, I’ve not been so impressed by a musical act for a long long time. Back in the late 80’s Faith no More released “Epic”, along with a video of them perfoming the song, that took Faith no More out of the mire of rock bands being just “noise”.

When somebody who likes rock listens to their favourite rock music, often we’ll look out over a landscape, at boats, or at children playing in a park, so rock can captures emotions in a very precious way.

In the 80’s rock bands became tainted with pimped up images, permed hair and pretty clothes, the whole thing, still kinda works, but all to often they were giving certain fans what they think they’d want, and when humans get what they think they want, it is like eating too many sweets.

Faith no More took rock music out of that commercialism mire and planted it firmly where it belongs as an art form with its own set of sensibilities, not a moral code as such, but an allowance for humans to celebrate being human, to celebrate the positive and to accept, or rather to challenge the negative that exists, be that commercial whoredom or our own feelings.

Voidstalker using the light streaming image just somehow resonates for me with that Faith no More “Epic” video, and light and shade used in that video, now echoed by the title of Voidstalkers album “Sight in shadow”

Voidstalker are a rich experience.

The album is prettily produced :0 forgive me, as that’s no bad thing in truth, and we must bear in mind that I’m listening through my tv’s speakers… The album is recorded technically well, songs are faded or brought to an end, the album flows impressiveley, not once did I think, oh I’ll go back to that other song, I could just let this album wash over me, which I have, letting it play through twice.

Stuart Cowley is an accomplished guitar player, and as with sight in shadow, he is able to play complicated chords, but also to allow the music to be calming and serene at times.

All members of the band seem to work well together.

Emily Garrards lyrics speak in definite, but not patronising tones, not scared to write down philisophical notions, or to name her demons. Her voice is used well, harmoniously, sometimes I have to make myself listen to her words, as at times her voice is so part of the sound that the two are one and it is easy for me to listen to the melodies alone, but I like the lyrics too 🙂

The bass  is integral within the sound, the bass is there and it is used, but its not over shouty, though I can pick out a couple of bits of dirty bass ( dirty bass is good).

The drums again are used well, integral, but again not shouty, which is a good thing, because the music on the whole is all put together well.

I wanted to say, the drummer could use the cymbals more, but as I’m listening, the cymbals are there… perhaps when I listen through different devices I’ll hear more, perhaps the band could let the cymbals crash through a little sometimes (my point of view)

For me the whole album is excellent work, musically it all works and is a nicely polished performance.

Voidstalker are an excellent band and Sight in Shadow is, more than I hoped for.

Adrian