Some records just sound like winter. Detroit’s Pillar of Light know a thing or two about the harshest season, as anyone who has time in the Mitten can attest. Released late last year, their debut, Caldera, is winter music through and through. Its seven songs are punishing, relentless, and heavy, and lead vocalist Aaron Whitfield sounds at the end of his rope. The record’s title suggests a deep depression, and the tone here is mournful. As life marches forward, we lose people along the way, and the soul-searching that comes with those losses has inspired Caldera, dedicated to the group’s late friend, Steven Jon Muczynski.
Still, this is no wallowing in misery. Across the seven songs that make up Caldera, Pillar of Light grapple with the heaviest of topics, but as the band’s name suggests, they are doing so to push forward, to find a light before the end of the tunnel. The band is comprised of veterans of the Motor City’s heavy music scene, and their sound emerges fully formed after working on the record over the course of a few years. They blend doom, sludge, and post-rock expertly. Pillar of Light has a clear vision and the talent to follow through. For fans of the more experimental ends of hardcore like Neurosis and Isis, this is a must-listen.
Opener “Wolf to Man” sets the tone, a slow burn that unleashes a massive, wailing riff in its final third. “Spared” wastes no time getting to its anguished guitars and is anchored to the catharsis of Whitfield shouting, “There is no other way.” It isn’t uplifting, but there is something meaningful in acceptance, too. The song builds and builds across nearly ten minutes, piling on riff after riff. The blast beats that anchor “Infernal Gaze” are another of the record’s finest moments. “Leaving” begins and ends with a massive earworm of a riff but finds room to breathe in the middle.
While some records that maintain a consistent tone can become an endurance test, Caldera deftly avoids this. It continues to open up more fully on repeat listens. The songs’ deliberate construction provides space when needed, as with the atmospheric “Eden”, the album’s midpoint. But that calm is quickly supplanted by the slow burn of “Infernal Gaze”. The music is so evocative that it would flatten the listener even without the remarkable vocal performance of Whitfield. The production from Andy Nelson perfectly captures the group’s power and is equally powerful in the quieter moments and heaviest ones. Caldera demands attention and isn’t designed to fill the background spaces.
Caldera walks the line between darkness and light, mirroring how we find our way forward even on our most challenging days. When we are at our lowest points, Pillar of Light are there with us, searching for meaning in the darkness. Sometimes, knowing we aren’t alone in our anger, confusion, and sadness is the only peace we can find.