Divide and Dissolve - Gas Lit (2021)

The Australian duo consisting of Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill is known for their punk-like approach to music and loud and heavy sound. They just released their third album, Gas Lit, and it's both artistically satisfying and otherwise important. One could say "it's lit".

The artists are taking up fight for many noble cases, mostly revolving around the environment and the prosperity of the Indigenous people all over the world. They name their album many things, including "a call to transformation and freedom", a statement I find especially powerful. Also, it all feels very natural and true, which is certainly helped by the fact that both musicians are of the minority origins (Reed is Black & Tsalagi [Cherokee] while Nehill is Māori) which makes it easier for them to "carry their fight and ancestors fight forward each and every day, using the power of their performances to draw attention to the ongoing battle against systemic oppression".

They do what they do with the help of very loud and very powerful drone metal. The texture of their sound is as droney as it could be, it's coarse and irritating and very heavy. It is made of guitar and saxophone sounds that are so transmuted, they can be hardly recognized anymore. The atmosphere itself conveys the message in an impressive way, but if it was too little, there's also the monologue spoken by Minori Sanchiz-Fung, a Venezuelan artist of multiple interests, in Did You Have Something To Do With It and it makes the spines thrill.

Gas Lit costs 10.98 USD.

Check: We Are Really Worried About You

Country: Australia

Genre: drone metal

Label: Invada Records

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