Blackwater Holylight: Not Here Not Gone

"Yes, there's plenty of distortion, more than on any of their previous albums; yes, the slowly trilling riff of "Spade" will have you wondering which Black Sabbath song it reminds you of (it's " Sweet Leaf"). But unlike so much of the heavy music with which it's conversant, Not Here Not Gone doesn't see heaviness as an end in itself, or even as its dominant mode. It's heavy in the way a difficult conversation is heavy, or the way someone's expectations can weigh you down."

"Even at their doomiest-2019's Veils of Winter-Blackwater Holylight's music has tended to feel wraithlike, a tired ghost's memory of horror rather than an encounter with trauma itself. Not Here Not Gone is similarly spectral, even as Sonny Diperri's production highlights the same bricked-out guitars and rounded low end with which he's helped DIIV, Narrow Head, and Rundle herself assemble their own walls of sound."

Blackwater Holylight released Not Here Not Gone as their fourth album after moving from Portland to Los Angeles. The record combines doom, black metal, and well-mannered shoegaze influences, increasing distortion while favoring propulsive, consistent songwriting. Heaviness functions as emotional weight rather than as an aesthetic goal, producing a bruised singer-songwriter tone soaked in overdrive. Sonny Diperri's production emphasizes bricked-out guitars and a rounded low end, creating a thin, papery, spectral quality that protects listeners from overwhelming noise and foregrounds the ache at the center of many songs. The opening track "How Do You Feel" frames intimate final moments with tired, poised vocals.

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