I surrender control and let my grip relax, my focus drift…and the darkness that hangs behind you, that surrounds your haunted face like a fractured halo, swims forward in my awareness. I see the movement in the overlapping shadows, the devils of memory that dance about you and plague you with whispered cruelties and lullabies of doubt. I see the margin walkers that carry your burdens like pilgrims on dusty, night time roads. I see the outliers who guard your dreams in the frayed places on the very edge of remembrance. I see what has shaped you and broken you, what has painted you in the colours of old blood and pain, when I gaze upon you with softer eyes...
Soft Eyes is a tome of stories, a path between shadows, the moment the sun slips below the horizon encapsulated in sound …it is the long awaited return of Ba’al. Nearly four years on from the release of their beautiful, gruelling debut album, Ellipsism, Sheffield’s darkest sons are ready to unveil their most powerful, emotive and inspiring work to date. Comprising of three gargantuan tracks that carry the listener through doors of perception, over seas of emotion to storm-ravaged, distant shores of revelation - Soft Eyes is an EP that can leave you changed by its visitation. The music exists in the twilight realms between definitions, where doom and sludge meet beneath the cold moon of ambient and noise, where gothic touches brush lightly against the skin of blackened post metal. Pulsing rhythms and fragile cascades of introspective melody collide with riffs like towering black stone monoliths and impassioned, agony-infused vocals howl like storms arising from the bleakest corners of the earth. All encompassing melancholy, scarring grief and a hollowing sense of loss swirl in a seemingly inescapable vortex of sound, yet, almost invisible, a pale grey light of hope flickers at the edge of the darkness… The breadth, depth and fierce intensity of Ba’al’s sound is breathtaking and Soft Eyes represents the perfect distillation of everything they have to offer. It is a sacrifice, an offering and between the raging walls of chaos, a silent assurance of understanding.
Recorded and mixed by Joe Clayton (Conjurer, Dawn Walker, Mountain Caller, Ithaca etc) at No Studio in Manchester and mastered by the in demand Brad Boatright (Kylesa, Vastum, Obituary, Night Demon etc) at Audiosiege, Soft Eyes sounds simply incredible; overwhelming, richly textured, crushingly heavy and wonderfully dynamic. The EP will hit the streets on May 3rd through Ba’al’s new label, Ripcord Records and the impact will be seismic. With Soft Eyes Ba’al have created a game changing record that will capture the hearts of all who wander into its dark embrace.
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