Glare of the Sun – Theia Review

Band: Glare of the Sun
Album: Theia
Label: Lifeforce Records
Genre: Post-Doom Metal
Country: Austria
Release Date: June 21st, 2019

Glare of the Sun are here to make a name for themselves in the post-metal realm with Theia. Theia is an album that blends post-metal, doom, prog, and shoegaze into one fluid and cohesive listening experience. You’ll find many albums that are best enjoyed when all the songs are listened through as a full album, and Theia is no exception. This album has great contrast in terms of heaviness and riffery as well as melody and atmosphere causing for a very easy listen all the way through. Although not necessarily reinventing the wheel, Glare of the Sun create a satisfying listen with Theia.

Theia is crafted so delicately to be experienced in full. All the track titles are numerical (I, II, III…), similar to Winters Gate by Insomnium for example, only adding to its cohesive experience. Titling the tracks this way can make it somewhat difficult to identify the individual tracks, especially with music of this nature that blends so many different styles and genres so smoothly as it progresses. The tracks in context of the album are great tracks that perfectly convey the emotional and personal lyricism when taken as a whole, but do not stand as strong individually. Many of the tracks are slow burners as the tracks average about six minutes in length and do not follow your typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus formula; they’re more linear in that regard and tend to buildm then comedown following the climax. The record starts off very gloomy and atmospheric and transitions beautifully into II. You will find that most of the tracks transition smoothly from one to the other, which truly makes the album a long piece of art instead of just a collection of tracks. II is the one of the highlight tracks with the most memorable riff and accompanying double kick pattern found on the whole record, as well as one of the most captivating outros. IX on the other hand, has a beautiful vocal melody while the rest of the band progresses the song to its simple yet powerful outro. Overall, all the tracks will smoothly go back and forth between the heavily distorted riffs, the lush atmosphere, and the relaxing acoustic passages ultimately making this album just fly by with the variety.

Overall, there are not so many stand out moments that will immediately grab your attention as it is the whole album experience that is the captivating factor more so than the individual tracks. The lack of individuality of the tracks slightly holds this album back from being great, but the songs in context of the album it is very effective when listened to in full. Of the few stand out moments, one was on X, which starts off so peacefully with the entrancing acoustic arpeggios accompanied by the soothing vocals as it slowly builds to this emotional climax in which the rest of the band comes in (as well as a string accompaniment) and the vocalist lets out a scream fueled by pain and suffering. I really do enjoy the clean vocals found on this record, as they’re so dynamic as you’ll have passionate singing as well as some whispered vocals as well. Specifically in X, the clean vocals remind me of Peter Steele’s deep and luscious vocals from Type O Negative during the build to the climax. On the contrary, the harsh vocals found throughout the record even remind me of Nergal from Behemoth to an extent. With the back and forth between the calm and the storm, I am reminded of a unique band known as Sleep Token that writes very similar music in which the direction of each song is quite linear and combines several styles. I just feel very familiar with the vocals and am reminded of several other great bands as I have mentioned. Given the nature of the music on this album, the transitions between the atmospheric acoustic passages to the heavy and distorted riffs as well as the transitions from song to song are all just so eloquently done. Although this record is just over an hour in runtime, it’ll just zoom by with how entrancing the music itself is being that it mixes post metal, prog, doom, and shoegaze into one elegantly wrapped package.

Theia as a whole, is a mysterious yet beautiful work of art. It is one of those albums that will take some time to really grow on you as there are little to no hooks and such to reel you in on the first listen. Like many albums, this is one that you’ll need some time to properly digest and before you know it, you won’t be able to stop yourself from coming back to it. Glare of the Sun are sure to soon blow up in the post-metal world with Theia. This is certainly a record that you will want to collect on vinyl too, as the vinyl variants that are available are as captivating as the music is!

Rating: 7.5/10

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