After delivering the soul-shattering ‘The Things We Think We’re Missing’ in 2013, Balance and Composure had their work cut out for them as they ventured on to create their next album. While some artists find the activity to be quite daunting, the Pennsylvanian five-piece set up shop in their new practice space and embraced this task with fresh eyes and excitement.
And deliver again they did.
“Pull me down/Down to your ocean floor” softly croons vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons on the opening track ‘Midnight Zone’, illustrating a scene of overwhelming love and admiration, a common theme on the album. Throughout the album, Simmons’s voice moves between melodramatic and his familiar, controlled pitch with lyrics ranging from enigmatic to clear, emotional declarations.
In a recent interview, drummer Bailey Van Ellis mentions that ‘Postcard’ is one of the album’s most abstract songs. However, it seems more apt that ‘For A Walk’ would be crowned the most contemporary of the tracks included on the album. With its galactic effects and brushed vocals, the track takes us on a sexual space ride (yep, you read that right).
‘Light We Made’ shivers the spine and sways the hips with its textured sonic landscapes loosely stitched together with sweeping, sugary vocals. Though grainy traces of ‘The Things We Think We’re Missing’ persist on tracks like ‘Afterparty’, ‘Call It Losing Touch’, and ‘Is It So Much To Adore’, their new album offers some cavity-inducing tempos. Meanwhile, bass and drums construct a luscious rhythm that equalizes the crisp guitar distortion.
In the video for ‘Postcard’, the psychotropic scene set around dusk props the album up on a unique audio-visual platform. Though, it’s hard not to instantly connect the opening guitar to that of the opening track ‘Parachutes’ on ‘The Things We Thing We’re Missing’. The closing, similarly beat-heavy track ‘Loam’, complete with auto-tune, confirms the band’s transition from melancholy to smoldering decisiveness.
Listening intently from start to finish allows small details to rise to the surface. Waves of sound push and pull us through complicated emotions, unsteady relationships, and insecure self-perspective. Flowing effortlessly from track to track, there’s a light dust that lingers in the air; not so much that it makes it hard to breathe, but that it forces us to breathe slower and grow more patient.
If you’re in search of the vigor that graced B&C’s previous albums, you won’t find that here. But you will find five gents who have re-energized their own environment with newfound creativity and endurance.
JACLYN O’CONNELL