Glassing have that often missed trait of being able to create something beautiful to listen to that is also crushingly heavy and ethereal in it’s makeup. The constant dichotomy between the whispered, emotionally charged vocal delivery and the screamed black metal shrieks provides a foundation for an album that takes you on a journey, through liminal spaces generated by the celestial shoegaze of guitarist Cory Brim, punctuated by blitzkrieg drumming, and huge arena esque beats. This record toys more with lose structures in the songs, where before there were limitations there is now only imagination, each member of the band cut lose to pound out their most emotionally profound record yet.
No where else is this more apparent than in the opener ‘Anything you want’, bludgeoning from the get-go, the track blasts out it’s main harmony, a dissonant fiddly drone that repeats ad nauseam creating a sense of hurtling towards inevitable demise. This juxtaposes against the shoegaze rich second track ‘Nothing Touches You’ that starts off in a much more contemplative region, spacing out the melody with thoughtful bass accompaniment and drumming that builds tension to a lead line that is reminiscent (if only for a second) of early Alexisonfire. The comparisons to the Canadian post-hardcore power houses don’t step there, as the song continues to allude to them over and over in the choices of harmony and lead delivery against that ever present foundation of sandpaper vocals.
“This dichotomous sense of self, pairs seamlessly with the duality of Glassing’s music, it’s almost as though the two ideas were made for each other.”
The idea behind the title, and one of the main themes of the record is the idea that your sense of self might only be constructed by others, even as you look at your own reflection in the mirror. This dichotomous sense of self, pairs seamlessly with the duality of Glassing’s music, it’s almost as though the two ideas were made for each other. Later in the record this is showcased perfectly in the dark sludgey mire that is ‘Circle Down’, as the black hole heavy drums weigh down into the reprieve, that dissonant melody, and both soft and hard vocals all come together to create a cacophonous explosion into the last couple of tracks.
An album like this only takes a listen or two to get on board with. Such is the raw power of the delivery of every facet of the music. Glassing have produced a piece of work here that all encompasses all of their hard work since their inception through to the present day, and it shows, not in the polish, and the production value (although that is also on point) but in the open wound of emotion that the album hinges on.