In Pursuit Of Something Interesting: Another Heaven's "You Are Loved"

Summer is a time for light and upbeat songs that you can listen to while barbecuing or drinking beer on some roof top bar in a gentrified part of town. These tunes are as happy and free as a warm beach day. However, the band featured in this week's column is not that. It, in fact, is almost the opposite in the best of ways. Another Heaven (formerly known as Hollow Boys) have been churning out heavy music since 2016. Their sound is a compilation of sludge, doom, and shoegaze. In their bio, the band describes themselves as a sludgegaze/doom-pop band. Another Heaven is on the Minnesota label Modern Radio, which specializes in all things loud and sludgy. Since Another Heaven are label mates with Fury Things, I was more than willing to give their 2017 EP, You Are Loved, a listen.

You Are Loved opens small but quickly grows as the guitars, bass, and synths coalesce into a dense wall of sound. Unlike other acts with elements of doom, Another Heaven maintains a level of articulation and subtlety within the density. The importance of the drums on this EP cannot be understated. They provide a driving force behind the wall of sound to keep it from bogging itself down.

Of the seven songs on the album, five of them follow a more traditional song format. Most clock in at under four minutes and have solid beginning, middle, and end; however, it is the other two songs on You Are Loved where Another Heaven decide to branch out and experiment with their sound. The track "Dead Star/Dr. Mars" really stands out because of this. Clocking in at nine and a half minutes, the track is a song and spoken-word story combined into an eerie experience about an interaction the speaker had with a creature lived in his house. They would only communicate through the speaker's dreams.

If I had to nitpick this EP, the only downside to it falls in the longer tracks. It feels like the band did not map out the songs, and tracks can tend to meander. The last minute of "Dead Star/Dr. Mars" is just drones that stagnate quickly. During a live performance it would work as a fade into the next song, but on record it seems to drag. The second longest track, "Capsule Song," feels like a couple of different song ideas put together. At the two and a half minute mark the first section has a disjointed cut before it continues. The last three-quarters of the song is an instrumental that would have no problem standing alone as its own track. These issues are only minor and are only noticeable if you really pay attention to what is going on.

Overall, Another Heaven's You Are Loved is a solid release. It's a monster blasting out of earbuds and speakers so I can only imagine what these songs sound like live. You definitely need to spend some time with this record in order to digest everything.