Spirit Adrift Surprise-Drop Final Album Infinite Illumination
Austin-based progressive doom metallers Spirit Adrift today issue what’s their sixth and reportedly last full-length, Infinite Illumination. Led to the finish by Nate Garrett, who started the band as a solo-project more than a decade ago, unveiled the standalone single “Eternal Celestial Energy” and have already played their alleged final live show, supporting Crowbar and Eyehategod, which, if you gotta go out, is a good one on which to do so.
I guess all the “reportedly” and “alleged” as regards the end of the band can make it seem like I’m skeptical about the band breaking up. I don’t think Garrett, who was in bands before Spirit Adrift and still has Neon Nightmare and other projects going, is done making music, and as often as these things are presented as absolutes, time passes and sometimes a band might resurface who at the time seemed to be done for good. Can anyone think of a high-profile example of this in recent, like the last month, history? Anybody? You in the back? Yes, fuggin’ Neurosis. Thank you.
So while one can applaud the accomplishments of Spirit Adrift and be thankful that a ‘last album’ exists at all, let alone in such a manner as to let you hear it immediately, forever is a really long time, and you never know where life will bring you when you set out to make a change. Maybe they’re done for good and maybe not. Today what matters is the record putting the bookend on their tenure, and that they’re going out on their own terms. Whether they at any point come back the same way, I guess we’ll have to see.
From the PR wire:
The end has come… long revered and widely acclaimed heavy metal giants SPIRIT ADRIFT have released their sixth and final album, Infinite Illumination, today via 20 Buck Spin. Bookending a monumental decade+ long run, the band’s bittersweet swan song is marked by one of their most ambitious and crushing records to date.
SPIRIT ADRIFT mastermind Nathan Garrett’s final magnum opus is a return to the wellspring that first inspired it all and a testament to a band that in the last 10 years has crafted an impeccable signature thoroughly their own, molded from the elemental matter of more than a half century of heavy metal exaltation.
Infinite Illumination has a directness to it, a sense of urgency and raw intensity. The songs feel inevitable, like they had to be driven out from deep within during a time of great upheaval. The fatalistic ‘Born in a Bad Way’ summons a vengeful “broken relic from another age” that must “live again and make them pay” via Garrett’s swaggering snarl, while “White Death” impugns “God shined on a chosen few, we must kill the rest of you”. These songs have a palpable sense of malaise both spiritual and terrestrial, personal and universal, inflicted via crushing traditional Doom riffs, thunderous mid-tempo marches and Garrett’s impassioned vocal delivery.
Long after the band is gone fans will continue to discover the SPIRIT ADRIFT catalog and witness the breadth of greatness they delivered in just a decade’s time. Every melodic, epic and emotionally charged thread that defines the band’s legacy honors the animating force behind pure creative ambition. And at its core Infinite Illumination carries both the weight of conclusion and the troubling realization that it is rarely painless to say farewell.
Infinite Illumination is available digitally today. Gatefold LP and CD editions will be released May 15th. Pre-order here: https://www.20buckspin.com/spiritadrift
https://www.spiritadrift.com/
https://spiritadrift.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/spiritadrift/
https://www.20buckspin.com
https://listen.20buckspin.com
https://www.instagram.com/20buckspinlabel
https://www.facebook.com/20buckspin
