Review for Between Sunlight and Shadow from the Spock's Beard Message Board

This review comes from neither a musician nor a writer, merely a lover of music. Unfortunately, my passion for music overpowers my desire to look at music objectively. Since I cannot remain objective, I will at least tell you my main prejudices. I am a sucker for well-crafted concept albums. When used well, I am also a big fan of piano; classical guitar; strong, prominent bass lines; and multi-part vocals. I dislike silly, bombastic synthesizer sounds.

Despite being an admittedly biased listener, I want to talk about Singularity's new album Between Sunlight and Shadow. It is a concept album, quite an undertaking for a second album, and in structure is similar in structure to Dark Side of the Moon, in that it is around forty-five minutes in length, flows beautifully between all fifteen tracks, and is based on a theme of mental illness. Since I had never before heard and had barely heard of Singularity, I really didn't know what to expect.

What I found was a refreshingly unique sound. I found a band that mixed all their influences well, but even more importantly managed to overshadow these influences with stunning originality.

The first track greets the listener with sounds of cars driving by (quite appropriate for a song called Drive). As the second car passes by, a crescendo builds and introduces the song's lovely piano theme played by John Green. (Score one point for Singularity) Shortly before the 3-minute mark, the music shifts into a laidback instrumental driven by Matt Zafiratos's great bass playing. (Score another point for Singularity). In addition to being won over by the musical qualities of Drive, I have since found myself subconsciously singing the chorus on numerous occasions. All around, Drive is a great beginning to the album, but sets quite a high standard for the rest of the album. Amazingly, Singularity manages to maintain this high standard of quality throughout the entire course of the album.

It was while listening to the second song, Invictus, that I became aware of the intelligence of this band. Most of the song titles listed on the back never appear as lyrics within their respective songs. Puzzled by the title, I discovered that Invictus is in fact a late nineteenth century poem by William Ernest Henley. (Though I don't know for certain that the poem is the origin of the song name, it seems rather likely.) The poem, as I interpret it, describes a man fighting insanity, who ultimately finds himself to be master of his own destiny, and envisions a bright future. The lyrics of the song also give off the same impression, though through entirely different words. The title of the next song, Stratum basically means a stage of development, while the song describes a stage of the character's lapse into madness. Thus it seems that Singularity uses the titles not merely to relay the most repeated song lyrics, but as another vehicle to describe the development of the album. But I'll stop there and leave the rest of the song titles for you to dissect.

Flight is full of those synth sounds that I earlier claimed to quite dislike, but Singularity somehow manages to make them sound good, even to my ears. (For good use of synths, I'll give them another point) In Passing & All Comes Down make good use of multi-part vocals. (This earns many more points). All Comes Down is especially beautifully layered vocally with at least 4 or 5 layers of vocals and is far too short. Still is a beautiful classically tinged acoustic guitar piece that provides a good transition into the beautiful piano-driven Hold a Candle. (I can't count this high) The only problem I have with the song is that the singer seems to be trying to sing a bit beyond his range in parts. This hardly detracts from the beauty of the song, however.

In case you hadn't been paying attention to the drums, in the first 10 seconds of Traces Jamie McGregor plays them with such a vengeance as to remind you how strong the drumming has been throughout. And if you had any doubts whether Singularity could employ recurring themes, Metamorphosis dispels them.

Though I lost count of points, it should go without saying that I quite enjoyed this album, which has firmly planted itself in my top 5 albums of the year. Not enough good things can be said about the flow, the emotion, the musicianship, and just the sheer beauty of this masterpiece. I eagerly await what Singularity will grace us with in the years to come. If you have not done so already, order Between Sunlight and Shadow!

- Colin Legerton, 10/31/02

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