Six Organs of Admittance

While many bands become painfully predictable, Ben Chasny's long-running Six Organs of Admittance have never been one such group. Each record has clearly stood apart from the one before it, with Chasny and his ever-changing crew of folk-minded players rarely treading the same ground twice. This applies to Luminous Light, an album that abandons the more linear singer-songwriter approach of 2007's Shelter from the Ash for a more atmospheric exercise in folk psychedelia. Chasny still brings his finger-picked guitar mastery but pairs it with some downright ominous textures, courtesy of heavy dudes like Sunn O))) collaborators Randall Dunn and Eyvind Kang. And, really, it's these twisted masses of buzzing, droning sound squalls that make this record, such as when they overtake an entire track during the Fennesz-like instrumental "Cover Your Wounds with the Sky" or when they simply feedback in the background of folk noir séances like "Anesthesia." For sure, Six Organs are back in a meditative state on Luminous Light but their standard for head-trippin' otherworldliness is as high as ever.