Album Review: Spawn, Light Rite
Posted in Reviews on October 23rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Despite the somewhat monochromatic style of its nonetheless-rad, obi-inclusive cover art, Light Rite is not misnamed. The debut album from Australia-based/China-rooted psychedelic explorers Spawn arrives following 2021’s Live at Moonah Arts Collective (review here) and sets itself to a clear mission of aural healing. For sure its six-song/42-minute procession is heavy; from the doomly fuzz in the nodding opener “Lotus Rising” through the rumbling crescendo in the 14-minute finale “All is Shiva,” the Melbourne six-piece want nothing for either heft or scope of presence, and after a few tumultuous years of lineup changes around guitarist/vocalist/thereminist Lenz Ma — joined here by bassist/vocalist Andie Kate, guitarist/vocalist Madi O’Shea, sitarist/vocalist Dr. Sarita McHarg, keyboardist Angelique Forsyth and drummer Rhiannon Smith; as well as Jewel Gold, who wrote “Ascension” and is credited as being somewhere on an outro — the band sound both cohesive in their purpose and creatively open, striking a balance between structured fare like the repetition-based “Remember to Be Here Now” and the rolling jam that “Don’t Let Them Dim Your Light” was likely born from.
Recorded in Melbourne by Paul Maybury (who also mixed), Light Rite engages positive messaging in its lyrics alongside a spiritual expression. The ‘rite’ in the title has less to do with ‘occult’ leaning genre tropes and is more concerning the listening experience itself. That is to say, as one might make a routine of meditating or doing yoga, something like this toward some notion of wellness or just not losing your mind in a world and time so persistently awful, Spawn position these songs as a similar kind of fulfilling respite. If you don’t believe music can heal, I’m sorry for whatever trauma has brought you to that point. The lyrics especially feel geared toward doing just that, as the aforementioned “Don’t Let Them Dim Your Light” demonstrates in its first verse:
“Don’t be sad, listen to the birds
Don’t give up, you have come so far
Don’t lose sight, just open up your eyes
Don’t lose hope, sun always rise up
Don’t you worry, just be here now
Don’t divide, we are in this together”
Later in the track, there is mention of an ‘eternal soul’ and the joy of saving one. That might be what Spawn are doing here and it might not, but “Lotus Rising” sets out ‘In the muddy slime’ alongside its willfully-slow initial roll, buzzing lead guitar and eventual introduction of the sitar, which takes its place in the broad instrumental sections of “Don’t Let Them Dim Your Light” and “All is Shiva,” working alongside soloing guitar lines, keys, and percussion in the closer, while stepping back the weightier-feeling “Remember to Be Here Now” and adding deep-mixed echoing ethereality to the penultimate “Truthful People,” where the sinewy verses of the first half make a build for the fuzz-toned realizations complementing the invocation of Hindu philosophy’s highest spiritual planet, Krsnaloka. That song, in accord with the suitably blossoming position “Lotus Rising” puts the beginning of the album, calls out, “Truthful people please come to me,” before naming this a “A world of lies/The greatest thing will be the fall of it.” These two songs may well have been written in response to the band’s own experiences in terms of lineup changes, and even the way the snare persists under the lush vocal harmonies as “Don’t Let Them Dim Your Light” moves through its mellower opening comes across as pointed and determined.
“Ascension,” the only track not credited as being written/arranged by the whole band, posits love as transcending physical reality (“space and time”), and is a partial departure with its “Planet Caravan”-y watery vocal effect early on, volume trades and throater, shouted vocal lines, but it doesn’t feel out of place nearly so much as it adds to the dynamic of Light Rite as a whole, and honestly, it’s not like the aural context surrounding is so rigidly constructed. There is a plot, to be sure, and pieces vary beyond runtime and lyrical structures as a part of that. At its fullest toward the midsection, “Ascension” doesn’t and plainly isn’t trying to capture the same kind of impacts as the plod of “Remember to Be Here Now” (which is also half as long, which is why I mentioned runtimes in the previous sentence) at around two and a half minutes in. It’s about a diversity of intention musically, brought together under the cogent themes in the lyrics.
About that. Being someone without gods, any gods, I’m maybe less inclined than some to embrace notions of the soul and being one with spiritual beings. The chanting at the outset of “All is Shiva” is no less gorgeousness for not aligning with what I believe to be true about the universe, and if there are religious aspects to Light Rite, they run alongside the ultra-terrestrial anchor of “Remember to Be Here Now,” which issues its titular reminder 20 times (plus that one from “Don’t Let Them Dim Your Light” makes it 21 for the record), and the grounded-feeling fluidity of groove that begins in the grittier moments of “Lotus Rising” and runs a thread through to the swirl of the finale, which, yes, is a prayer lyrically.
I find the idea of a higher power manifest in the creative; the embodiment of something more than the self. The instrumental conversation, the way a song can speak to your brain so directly it becomes a part of you, or, as noted before, heals you. I believe in that, and am content to let the rest be a backdrop to the meditative nature of what Spawn have crafted throughout this immersive, soothing, care-based debut album. Like the live release before it, Light Rite feels raw in terms of its basic sound, and that is part of the organic aesthetic that Spawn hone in this material, giving a folkish hue to the melodicism and letting the otherworldliness of the most psychedelic moments shine out with due reach. I won’t hazard to predict where the band might go from here, but as thoughtful as it is, Light Rite is a meditative practice that feels like it was made for many returns, and it is all the more a gift for that.
Spawn, Light Rite (2025)
Spawn, “Lotus Rising” lyric video
WV Sorcerer Productions on Bandcamp
