TogethermenT 2023
Dissolving the darkness, American multi-instrumentalist sees scintillating future on the horizon.
Miracles In The Nothingness
If rock in general is often fueled by blind ambition, the genre’s progressive strand is ever so frequently driven towards vanity fair, and the impression left by this album’s beginning might be one of Riz Story biting more than the listeners are able to chew on his project’s third post-hiatus offering, because a double-disc record can become a double-edged sword for anyone, or ANYONE, to fall on. It’s all part of the Californian’s concept, though, a musical treatise on the art of existence, continuing the gloomy line which ran through the predecessors of “Miracles In The Nothingness”: "On The Ending Earth..." and "In Humanity" – both issued before the band’s co-founder Taylor Hawkins passed away. The tragedy could blacken the mood even further, despite the presence of another original member, Jon Davison, here, and that’s why there was a need for room to breathe to observe the past course and resolve the trilogy’s arc.
Not for nothing the platter’s finale “The Ineffable Bliss Of Being” – referring to Milan Kundera’s classic novel, of course – feels so bright and so warm, and not for nothing it flows out of the 20-minute-long titular epic whose panoramic, open-space production is painstakingly detailed to keep sonic spectators on their toes and completely destroy the anxiety “Dawning Of The Miracle” has build at the start, with the percussive and increasingly heavy, fusion-informed “Children Of The Void” piling up, rather sweeping away, the worries of the world. Story’s one-man-ensemble approach and stunning mastery of all the instruments on display help him solidify the project’s transparency, so the occasional cameo of acoustic guitar and the regular appearance of acoustic piano turning “If The World Is Running Down” into a spiritual plea and contrasting the riffs of “My Name Is Forever” and a few other electric-orchestral pieces, ground the album’s arresting, dynamically stoked cosmogony. And while the expansive “Transcending” pulses in a pop vein, with mellow vocal melody married to a six-string filigree and elevated to hymnal heights, the slow “Someone” lapses into the aural vacuum and the “Daylight” exposes the backdrop’s weave but, enhancing the magnificence, “Symptom Of The Miracle” flaunts Jon’s soft harmonies in rarefied air and dances amidst Riz’s strummed chords and almost rap-like delivery, and the majestic ballad “Evolutions” soars up there in a chamber way.
It’s a major work of immense scope, with ambition is balanced by daunting potency, and if one might wonder where ANYONE will wander off next “Miracles” leave no doubt, the new direction’s bound to be exciting.
*****
