I’ve been looking for a heavier album to counteract all the poppy summer music lately—sometimes you just want to get lost in the rain to some heavy trance doom—and this If You Only Knew EP from Portland’s Blackwater Holylight is just what the doctor ordered. Made up of Sunny Farris (Bass, guitar, vocals), Sarah McKenna (synths), Mikayla Mayhew (bass, guitar) and Eliese Dorsay (drums), Blackwater Holylight make what you could call ethereal or atmospheric doom rock.
The tracks always come with reverb-drenched and doubled or tripled vocals from Farris (who has an incredible range and sometimes sounds like Chelsea Wolfe), but have moments of absolutely filthy, drop-tuned, guitar/bass riffs, and some splashy cymbals and tom drum action. We also have the sprawling synthwork from McKenna, who pushes these tracks into a doomy electro realm and keeps the groove.
The standout has to be the second track, “Torn Reckless,” with its immediate punchy lead guitar loops, but the opener, “Wandering Lost,” is a close second. Blackwater Holylight is all about crafting that darkened, minor-keyed atmosphere and having it explode. It makes sense that this quartet has opened up for the likes of Russian Circles and Primitive Man.
There’s not one skip on this tiny 20-minute EP, and their cover of Radiohead’s “All I Need” reinvigorates the In Rainbow‘s track and turns it into a doomgaze epic. I want more. So I suppose I’ll have to check out their earlier work.
