Starofash
The Thread
8.5
This is a nice change of scenery. It's been all hell vomit and demon discharge as of lately. I've been trying to get inside of this as far as possible, for longer than I should have, so forgive my tardiness, and delusional state. I blame it on nighttime, a pair of headphones, and everyone asleep but me.
The Thread is a peculiarly addictive body of work compliments of Heidi Solberg Tveitan, known to most as Ihriel of Peccatum fame, but known to me, until recently, as the anonymous advocate to Ihsahn when involved in a pillowy project of which I've only scratched the surface. I never cared to dig deep into the Peccatum catalog. This trip could change that. She also hangs with an interesting circle of collaborators: A German composer and a "Japanese cyber-punk writer". I'm assuming that's "writer" as in "songwriter", and not "Japanese cyber-punk story writer". Although I'm sure that's a genre in itself. Anyway, yeah, it's interesting like that, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was a storyline in here somewhere that I'm not aware of. So much am I convinced that The Thread is ten steps in a larger conceptual piece, that it's become the soundtrack to my own little plot and cast of characters that I've been scouting out inside of my head and outside of my windows for the last week. Point being that this is an affair thick with a cinematic mystique, and fragile on its way there. So I approach it like porcelain in my efforts to squeeze out of the speakers every ghost hit of the snare drum ( "An Apology Gone Bad" ), every stick flirt with a cymbal surface ( "The World Spins For You" ), and a scene stealer for the film-noir ( "The Snake Pit" ), for everything that it's worth. Including, last and least, the subdued and sultry sparse vocal on this album that, while not at all put-offish, blocks my view. The version for the more sane: Barely the cold of electronica and mostly the warmth of organic, sans cyber-punk, all blissed out, sometimes minimalist, but unpretentious. It's an esoteric rock heart giving off a cool jazz pulse that spoons the blood along steadily, but with occasional flooding ( "Blood Bones and A Skull" ).
If none of this made any sense to you, and you're capable of putting down your beer and sword for 40 minutes, then The Thread is well worth your time and money.
I see sound when this is around.
