Fainting Dreams’ “Those Left Untouched By The Light” will capture you like a siren song
This album was released back in January of this year, but I finally got the chance to sit down and give it a proper listen all the way through. I probably will not stop talking about this album until next January.
The title track opens the album with a haunting, beautiful drone. Reverberated vocals drift along like what you see when you look at the stars. Then comes a punch to the throat. Distorted guitars and bass hit you like a train while the vocals add their harmonies. “How do you expect your gardens to grow green/When there’s hate in the heart/When there’s hate in the heart” The rest of the song gives way to yearning, gives way to question, gives way to a wander to violent resolution. Screams punctuate noisy guitars overlaid with drums and bass lines that feel like a curbstomp. The vocal harmony returns with a baseball bat.
Listening to the latest Fainting Dreams release feels like getting lost in the droning violence of walking the streets late at night because you aren’t sure what else you could possibly do. Elle’s lyricism is introspective and heart breaking. Always draped in reverberation, beckoning and then demanding to be heard. The vocals are celestial, and the harmonies between Elle and Francys carve themselves into your bones.
The guitars feel like a character here, the distortion more reminiscent of a voice being pushed to its limits than an instrument at times. The bass is full and warm and sounds like a hug, right up until it sounds like a weight being dropped on your shoulders. The drums are reserved, the rhythms being utilized more as accentuation when they need to be. But only when they need to be. Fainting Dreams is a band that knows how to use the dynamics of its players to really drive a point home. For me, the point here being the musical personification of the trans experience.
This album is beautiful. It is terrifying, it is loud, it is disgusting, it is pristine. It speaks in whispers. It will keep you in a trance and refuse to let go. It is beyond any notion that it will give you anything else than what it wants to give you, and it will give you everything.
Do yourself a favor and listen to Those Left Untouched By The Light by Fainting Dreams. Then listen to it again. You can find it on Bandcamp and Spotify, and you can follow Fainting Dreams on Instagram for when they announce their next show. Catch them at The Hi-Dive on 3/28 with Jenny Haniver and Ethan Lee McCarthy in the meantime!