The Spiritual Bat – Through the Shadows review
‘…in a limbo
Between thinking and doing’.
‘New Dance’
‘Through the Shadows’ is the debut album of ‘The Spiritual Bat’, the reformation of the cult Italian band ‘Spiritual Bats’. This album is conceptual, very professional and poetical work. So it probably would be easier to dedicate a poem to it than write a review.
The album begins with the catchiest self-titled song ‘Through the Shadows’. It’s a kind of key, which opens the release. Short atmospheric intro flows into dynamic hit song about sacral cleansing and reformation of feelings and emotions due to escape of spirit. There are words in this song ‘I fall to the ground, gasping for Air / Into the Light, through the Shadows’. This contrast of falling into the light which is beneath shadows can be called one of the main themes of the album, because it is the ‘inside’ spiritual light. This ‘spiritual escape’ is the only reason why this dynamic and energetic song can’t be the 100% club hit in spite of its powerful synth background line, and very expressive vocals of Rosetta Garri.
The next song is the instrumental work, called ‘Wandering on Cobble Hills’. A listener can notice that half of the songs on this 12-track album are instrumentals. On four of them (this one, ‘Prague’, ‘Primordial Call’ and ‘Twins’) we can have a pleasure of listening to Bruno Lombardi’s flute play. The touch of this master made these compositions really unique. Moody flute touches plenty of musical stratas, for example, we can hear some folk motives on ‘Prague’, but the music always keeps the band’s and the post-punk spirit.
In my opinion, the most interesting instrumental composition on the album is the one, dedicated to the 11th of September, 2001 and called ‘Twins’. The staccato guitar sounds, which stays moody and melodical, combines with rich bass line, atmospreric flute and synths, and amzing drum line of Alessio Santoni. A listener can also notice pauses in the composition which marks out single instruments and lets the character of the song get different shades. It’s rather hard to say, why flute hadn’t been used in two other instrumental works – ‘In the Golden Cage’ and ‘Trance’, because there’re other accented instruments which play the flute’s role there. In any case, it brings some difference, but in common all the instrumentals are similary worthed. Regarding to the songs with vocals, the voice of Rosetta can be called not even an unstument of expression, but a sterling musical instrument. Her voice has rich diapason, and she perfectly works with it. Sometimes there can be some etnical motives in it, or it can be done in more post-punk manner. The expression can be underlined by tremble or breath as it can be heard in ‘Silver Lakes’, or there can be very low vocals with too clear pronounciation in the last song, called ‘Sogno Tribale’.
As it was mentioned before, the certain theme of lyrics and the album in common is Spirit. I think, it was expressed perfectly. The only minus I found is that the songs seem a bit similar after the first one. There’re no strong surprises to a listener, by there’s the exciting atmosphere of falling into this music.
In conclusion I’d love to say that this work would be interesting for those who’re more in post-punk or gentle deathrock and for those who’re more into mystical and atmospheric so-called ‘gothic’ music as well. It’s absolutely another music, but ‘The Spiritual Bat’ is partly the follower of the previous project. It’s hard to give some style characteristics to it. May be, it could be called ‘Gothic Post-Punk’ or ‘Spiritual Batcave’. So, the spiritual bat is released. Let’s wait and see what will be in the future.
Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
Grave Jibes Fanzine
