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Album Review: Destroyer of Light, Panic

destroyer of light panic

Now a decade removed from their debut album, Austin, Texas’ Destroyer of Light remain persistent outliers in doom, and that seems to suit them just fine. Panic, recorded by Matt Meli — with whom they’ve worked since that self-titled first record — and topped off with Samantha Muljat cover art that hints toward the sonic depths contained in the songs, their fourth full-length is aptly-titled Panic, self-released, and continues the progression that’s been a linear thread through their work all along.

As they’ve matured, Destroyer of Light — the returning four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Steve Colca (also synth), guitarist Keegan Kjeldsen (also piano, harsh vocals, acoustic guitar), bassist Nick Coffman and drummer KellyPenny” Turner — have unfurled an increasingly melodic approach, and if their intent in Panic is to encapsulate some measure of the pandemic-born anxiety of the last several years since the release of 2019’s third record, Mors Aeterna (review here), then the tension of not only the title but songs like “Contagion,” the highlight centerpiece “Before You Die” and the concluding “Nightmares Come True” do so with a surety born of a group who know their craft. This comes through regardless of the turns any of the individual seven inclusions is making at a given stretch, as the band draw together varied material that hits all its marks stylistically while maintaining an overarching flow that feels like classic doom despite a more modern style. That is to say, at a tightly-packed 38 minutes, Panic is more methodical, more thought-out and more carefully put together than the title might lead one to believe.

Alongside the opening distorted strums of “Darkshimmer” at the album’s outset is, almost inevitably, an echoing air raid siren. It almost gets buried by the ensuing things-are-about-to-get-lurchy feedback, but it’s there, and by the time what becomes the central riff of the song starts just before a minute into its total 7:14 — opener and longest track (immediate points) — the atmosphere is set. Tonal largesse, rolling groove, a layer of lead guitar all seem to welcome the listener into the unfolding terrain as the chug of the verse emerges, and “Darkshimmer” becomes the first installment of a side-A-spanning trilogy marked by Kjeldsen joining Colca on vocals, adding deathly growls and rasp to the clean-sung verses and hooks. This takes place on “Darkshimmer” and “Contagion,” with side A rounded out by “The Midnight Sun,” and that feels as purposeful as it obviously is.

“Darkshimmer” teases a false ending before picking up in its last minute, and beginning with piano playing its chorus progression, “Contagion” — which Colca maintains was written before covid and follows not the only sci-fi narrative lyrically — is a standout hook for Panic as a whole; Colca‘s self-harmonies among the band’s catchiest. That it too gives over to a more brutal approach, specifically toward the end, brings a cast of sludge to the proceedings, and that fits Destroyer of Light well. I’m not sure I’d give up the penchant for melody that’s taken hold in their sound gradually over the last 10 years and especially over the last six or so, but in adding to the existential weight that carries across Panic, those flashes of brutality only give more breadth to this material and thus only make it stronger, allowing for the fluid transition to cleans-only as “The Midnight Sun” arrives with a sample and lays out a speedier push at first and an especially spacious solo later on — the plodding bass and drums in that back half deserve specific mention; you feel that slog — emblematic of the focus on side B to come.

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Both halves of Panic — the first with three songs, the second with four shorter on average — organize themselves going from their longest to shortest tracks. That’s a two-second difference as the aforementioned “Before You Die” (5:24) gives over to “Cold Air I” (5:22), but true nonetheless. More crucial perhaps is the abiding mournfulness of the guitar that begins “Before You Die” and the lumbering that ensues, vocals soaring upward from the deeper places in the mix, an emotive doom metal that has become Destroyer of Light‘s own over time blossoming in misery. “Cold Air I” rolls out in more active fashion but holds firm to the heft, and expands the arrangement of backing vocals in the chorus, an example of the band trying new ideas and a theme that will continue into the acoustic-led “Cold Air II.”

Certainly they’ve had quieter stretches on records before — 2017’s Chamber of Horrors (review here) had atmospheric intros to its two sides, etc. — but “Cold Air II” is distinguished in its form and embraces the pairing of acoustics and synth in a way that feels legitimately new from them. What’s more, there are vocals, and amid the vague impressions from “Planet Caravan” as they explore that contemplative guitar line before the keyboard sweeps in to lead the way instrumentally through the last two-plus minutes, there’s a sense of completion that is resonant and no less immersive than was the rawer heaviness of “Darkshimmer” or “Contagion.” At four and a half minutes and directly fed into by the ending of “Cold Air I,” as one might expect, “Cold Air II” lays claim to new ground with an unquestionable confidence.

It’s not the first flash of Candlemassian vibe on Panic, but “Nightmares Come True” feels particularly drawn from that classic, epic doom mindset. No complaints. It’s a deceptively quick undulating riff in the verse, opening in the chorus, and it re-grounds the album at the finish after “Cold Air II,” summarizing the reach of side B with a return of the thud and straightforward take that marked side A. That’s a lot to ask of a four-minute song, but Destroyer of Light cap by emphasizing urgency, and so recapture some of that initial tension. They remain pervasively grim in perspective, and familiar comparisons to the likes of Pallbearer persist — because, well, when you’re this sad and this heavy, someone’s gonna make that connection — but this comes even as they offer some of their most gleaming melodicism, and as they have all along, they refuse to stagnate creatively, each of Panic‘s well-defined halves marked by elements that increase their range on the whole. One would expect or hope for nothing so much as for them to continue to flourish as they do here.

Destroyer of Light, Panic (2022)

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