Heaven In Her Arms Just Dropped An Immersive and Heavy Record
A brand-new record from Heaven In Her Arms pulls together such different styles of heavy-handed rock, from emo-driven approaches to what feel like blistering metal riffs, vast shoegaze soundscapes, and loads of melodic drive.
This is definitely an LP that you want to do all the way through, simply because there's so much going on. There are so many surprises that sort of keep you on your toes, parts that you don't expect coming, and songs that you get swallowed up by.
There's definitely a lot to offer, and I certainly feel like this is a record that stands out a bit, simply because of the diversity and ability for the band to sort of branch out and not hold much back in the way of bending genres and creating songs that still feel consistent and confluent, but hit you with those off-the-wall riffs or the layers of ambient atmosphere whenever they feel like it.
This massive and intense delivery of sonic presence is called The End Of Purification. "Dawn Yarn" comes right in with this massive riff that showcases a lot of brilliance in terms of opening a record with a sort of aggressive tone, but this opens right up into Gothic overtones, spacious synths, and then verses into chords and brutal screaming.
You can start to hear elements of hardcore, post-hardcore, death metal, thrash, and more, but as the song unfolds, it starts to become something different. It still holds on to those heavier elements but also opens up into this sort of flourishing set of ambient and floating tones coming from different guitars that are clean, lying just underneath the heaviness.
Those cleaner, more shimmering sort of guitars start coming more towards the forefront and becoming the main focal point. The song keeps changing from there.
One thing I have to say right off the bat is that the guitar work across this record is absolutely astounding. It holds very little back in the way of just closed-fisted aggressive tones, exciting riffs, inventive atmosphere and sound sculpting, and just breeding these different approaches together in a seamless fashion.
As guitars thrash out, you have these almost orchestrated string-like synthesizers giving you a cinematic backbone and symphonic push, adding layers and depth, textures, and more to this already intense and full-bodied piece of work.
Keep in mind, as I mentioned earlier, this is just the first track alone.
"Threads of Collapse" follows that first initial single and definitely gives you something completely different to chew on. This one is much more ambient, cinematic, and flowing, but also gives you plenty of edgy tonalities that are always sort of lurking there just beneath the surface.
The way these guys are able to bring up and down the levels of intensity by pushing the ambience to the top and then switching up and pushing the heaviness to the top, is borderline brilliant.
As you listen to the record more and more, you start to realize that this is kind of a staple in how they write their music, and you also realize that these guys put so much time and effort into the arrangement of their music.
These songs create something so big and engulfing that you sort of take it all with you after it's done.
"Zanka" is a drifting but absolutely wild piece of work that spans well over 7 minutes in length, as some of the other songs do, and you get a lot of unique approaches on songs like this one.
You can certainly hear the thrashing death and blackened metal approaches shining through, blended with experimental tones, songwriting, fierce vocals, and melodies sort of scattered about underneath it all.
That's one of the biggest attributes of the record that really gets me. There's always so much to soak in at once. There's never a moment of emptiness, but instead, everything has a killer dynamic balance that gives you different textures at once.
The energy is almost rambunctious, especially on tracks like this one in particular. You get the blistering metal right in your face, but you also have those melodic notes sort of floating through the song's ether in the background.
The drumming throughout this record is unreal, and the way the drums were produced or mixed really helps the aesthetic and energy of the record come through the way it does.
There's always the element of depth and layers with this release. No matter what you're listening to from this record, you're getting those layers coming at you, and you're able to sort of either swim through them or get beat down by them. Either way, there's a lot to sift through, but that's part of the fun.
This is a record that exemplifies escapism at its best.
I would listen to the whole thing, from start to finish, without skipping a track.
Only then can you really get the full scope of what the album has to offer in terms of its diversity and experimental, atmospheric, heavy-handed, and thrashing approaches in songwriting.
Most definitely check this out and remember where you heard it first.
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