Six Organs of Admittance

Six Organs of Admittance don’t attract a lot of bad press and they don’t deserve to. Each record by this Ben Chasny-led project has been as solid as they come and rarely disappointing. And while Six Organs’ last album, The Sun Awakens, was considered by many to be their high-water mark, their latest, Shelter from the Ash, will likely once again have journalists cutting and pasting the phrase "most realised record to date” into their reviews. Wrapped in a gauze of dark neo-folk, Shelter balances all the best elements from the group’s previous eight albums: the eerie psych drones, the finger-picked lullabies, the full-on noise bursts. But rest assured, Six Organs aren’t just rehashing old ideas but rather expanding on and improving them. Sparse, plaintive numbers such as "Strangled Road” further hone Chasny’s Zen-like falsetto. Six-minute-plus epics like "Final Wing” add more crunch and feedback than thought possible. And the beautifully intricate title track may be the best song Chasny has ever penned. There’s really little, if anything, to complain about with Shelter from the Ash, as Six Organs continue to one-up themselves and raise the bar a little higher.