Black metal has a limited association with light-emitting objects. The genre's name references a void, or space that is absent of light. Most album art features monochromatic night scenes. And lastly, its adherents tend to be pale (that is pre corpse paint application) and vitamin D deficient from an apparent lack of sun exposure. There is a Darkthrone album that references a flicker of light emanating from somewhere northwards, but to the best of my knowledge, that's about as far as the genre on the whole goes. That was until the glint of Golden Light's debut Sacred Colour of the Source of Light caught my eye.
The glimmering golem of sound that is Golden Light, is comprised of one E. Henderson, who is responsible for all of the drums, guitars, and other unearthly noises the band emits, and another, vocalist Meghan Wood. Together they performer a highly minimalistic, raw, and atmospheric form of black metal that feels like an incredible meeting of the minds between early Mayhem and mid-00s Ulver. Or like a stripped-down version of Blut aus Nord, that you only hear from the basement of the abandoned apartment building next door when you are home alone. Or a variant of Agalloch that you hear in the woods on the outskirts of town, and whose source never appears to get closer no matter how long you walk in its direction. There is a haunting calm and a stillness to Golden Light that puts the listener at unnatural ease. They know there is something else happening around them, possibly something menacing, but they're willing to ignore the possible danger about to beset them, to indulge the embrace of its rough shimmering tones for a few measures more. And that's how Golden Light gets its snare around your foot. By setting a trap that you willingly step into and trigger with your own curiosity and naïve search for something good and cherishable. Golden light has much to offer but it will only give up its treasures at a price.
The band's debut Sacred Colour of the Source of Light opens with the church bell suffuse charge of "Sceptre of Solar Idolatry" whose relentless motion feels instantly eternal and wicked, like the waking trudge of the damned through purgatory, seeking a terminus to their trials that is forever just beyond the horizon. "The Western Gate" continues in much the same fashion, only with darker more penitent guitar tones and harsher, pain-stricken growls emanating from either Wood, or a ghost that haunts the studio they recorded in. It's on "Dawn of History" where the album reaches a nexus point, emerging out of its shambolic slog into a more ethereal space, where human voices ripple through the air in tongues, and a heat begins to well up from the ground to provide comforting warmth to weary souls, with piercing guitar leads and a spidery siren-like organ. The heart of the album though, is the title track, a revelation of intersecting sonic molts, in a dance of relief and delight, undergirded by blossoming eruptions of sun-kissed, consolatory guitars and breathy searching vocal howls, which merge and disappear into the surrounding instrumentation in near angelic ascendancy. Sacred Colour of the Source of Light is not an album you can listen to and appreciate piecemeal. It's a complete and unitary statement. A journey from damnation through to the promise of redemption. Whether that salvation is real or simply the delusions of a weary mind is up to the listener. The only certain thing is that you have to commit to the path that Golden Light has laid out here fully in order to learn the truth for yourself.
See also
Mick is always writing about something he's heard. Possibly even something you'd like. You can read his stuff over at I Thought I Heard a Sound Blog.
