‘So Lonely in Heaven’ is the second album by The Legendary Pink Dots since the global pandemic.
The group currently comprises Edward Ka-Spel (vocals, keyboards, songwriter), Erik Drost (guitars), Randall Frazier (keyboards, electronics) and Joep Hendrikx (live electronics).
The music made by The Legendary Pink Dots has incorporated elements of neo-psychedelia, ambient music, electronic music, tape music, psychedelic folk, synthpop, post-punk, progressive jazz, noise music, pop music, goth rock and alternative rock. An Anglo-Dutch experimental rock band whose career has spanned forty years releasing more than forty albums.
This long player opens with title track `So Lonely In Heaven` with electronic beeps and a spoken word oration with a bleak warning. After a little while some gentle vocals join and share what may possibly be a caution about AI, the state of the world and loneliness. There was a slight edge to `The Sound Of The Bell`, an ominous belief shared over a merge of various soundscapes. This piece ends with bells tolling which usually denotes the death of a person or maybe here it`s humanity.
`Dr. Bliss ‘25` has a melodic synth like ambience and could well refer to a healer or maybe it’s just a metaphor for something grander or imposing. It ends with what sounds like a beating heat and waves crashing against a shore. There was a haunted eerie aura to `Sleight Of Hand` which had late night saxophone tones which evoked a jazz like texture throughout its lifespan.
`Choose Premium : First Prize` has a more forceful electronic intensity with rhythmic beats which becomes fairly hypnotic as it evolves with a video game tone leading us out of the last sixty seconds or so. The sound of splayed guitar chord riffs leads us into `Darkest Knight` which has rolling revolving synth echoes and dreamy vocals.
`Cold Comfort` equates to a quite limited sympathy, consolation, or encouragement but here it has a compassionate ambience about it. A constant shrill whistle like sound permeates the composition which has a heartbreaking appeal and becomes fairly mesmerising. It is broken up briefly by the sound of rainfall and wind chimes. A strummed guitar guides us through `Wired High : Too Far To Fall` which has a folk like ambience initially and appears to hint at reincarnation. It veers off just over the halfway mark and becomes more dystopian and lost.
`How Many Figures in The Fog` begins with unconventional trippy reggae beat and does sound a little hazy, quite wistful, and plaintive. We enjoy a remote distant detached sounding electronic rhythmic creation with guitar riffs with `Blood Money : Transnational` which may refer to multinational or global money obtained at the cost of another’s life. The last minute has a vigorous cello like riff.
`Pass The Accident` is faster paced and projects an image of travel or movement with a constant percussive beat at its heart. There`s a nocturnal sense to the final cut `Everything Under The Moon` a subdued, sombre, and meditative number to close out on.
Edward Ka-Spel has shared the following about this release : “Way way back in the early days I used to say a lot about ‘The Terminal Kaleidoscope,’ a concept comparing the fragile planet we live on to a drowning human being with life flashing before his or her eyes, the images constantly accelerating. It’s 2024, a little over two decades since the turn of this unbearably turbulent century and the concept appears to have become an unlikely soap opera where we are the cast. Let’s hang in there….”
All I can add is that it`s a worthy, thought-provoking and intriguing listen with lyrics that may be provocative depending on your interpretation. I`m sure you`ll come to your own conclusions having imbibed its contents.
Rating 8.5/10
