Infinite Illumination [CD]

The journey of Spirit Adrift has come full circle. With their sixth album in a decade, mastermind Nathan Garrett is ready to unleash the band's final chapter. Infinite Illumination, the Spirit Adrift swansong, is a return to the wellspring that first inspired it all and testament to a band that in the last ten 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 it's core Infinite Illumination carries both the weight of conclusion and the troubling realization that it is rarely painless to say farewell.