Tear In the Sun

"Disconnect" starts Tear in the Sun with a calm, free-floating drone like a flat ocean, with darker harmonium zoning in as distant clouds heralding destruction, or at least disruption. But with the first recorded appearance of Connor Bell's calm, contemplative vocals on a Shedding release, the song turns to an internalized, steady and slow rhythm without beats, an unexpected shift on first blush that helps Shedding further carve their own way through the possibilities of understated psych-pop. The album continues from there in that general vein, a series of steady progressions at once blissed-out and a little foreboding, almost a touch of careful ritualism set against close, home-recorded (or sounding like it) sonics. The implied violence of a song title like "Cauterize" becomes something at once abstract and uncomfortably near, Bell's pronouncements not hectoring in tone but feeling like a conversational, suggestive voice as the music rises, swells, and pulls back in a steady cycle. If it's not early Legendary Pink Dots, say, it's in the vein of other recent artists like Cheval Sombre, inviting and somewhat unsettled. There's more than just zen contemplation — the perhaps appropriately titled "Illusion" adds a quicker pace and a bit of playfulness in its sweet, soft guitar parts, while "Suffocate" is, if anything, a bit like Pink Floyd's "On the Run," a quick synth instrumental with an explosive rock-out ending leading into the final track, the after-the-end-of-it-all stark instrumental "Incineration." It's the type of thing you could imagine Sunn 0))) doing, all evil feedback zone as ambient crawl before quietly concluding on a high, soft two-note loop, and it wraps up this enjoyable album very strongly.