Style: Melodic Progressive Rock (mixed vocals)
Review by: Will
Country: Canada
Release date: 22 February 2022
“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.”
Ernst Fischer (cited from Trailight’s bandcamp page)
Putting an Ernst Fischer quote on your band’s Bandcamp page is a daring move, but then again, Trailight is a band that likes to dream big. And the band’s creator and mastermind, Omer Cordell has a particular penchant for using historical quotes.
Chasing Daylight is Trailight’s fifth album and represents a remarkable evolution from their humble beginnings as the solo project of photographer and bassist Omer Cordell’s. Their first album was a deeply interesting compilation of melodies overlaid with the recorded words of historical figures such as J Robert Oppenheimer. Since then, Cordell added Cory McBain and Steven Parent to the lineup, and invited guest musicians to collaborate on albums, which helped to expand Trailight‘s musical repertoire. Chasing Daylight manages to build on strengths from previous works and add in novel elements which differentiates Chasing Daylight from its predecessors, making this a more interesting album for new listeners.
Omer’s laconic, mantra-like vocal style is on full display throughout the album. Mixed in such a way as to be almost faintly reminiscent of Gregorian chanting, the hypnotic vocal driven melodies are the most memorable aspect of many songs. The addition of Alannah Clark, Meris Williams, and Conan Freeman as backing vocals adds to this almost choral feel. Most impressively are the way that harsh vocals are mixed across many of the tracks. Sometimes cutting across Omer’s clean vocals for emphasis and other times joining the choir of voices, blending with them beautifully but providing that little bit of edge to the lyrics.
In addition to the excellent vocals, a lot has to be said for the instrumentals in this album. Whether it’s the crunchy riffs on tracks like ‘Vacuous’, the surprisingly light keyboard-driven soundscapes on ‘Chasing Daylight’, or ‘Disintegration’ and ‘Soliloquy’ which at times evoke space-rock bands like Diagonal or Hawkwind. There are some blistering guitar solos punctuated across the album both from Trailight’s own Cory McBain as well as Oswin Wong of Plaguebearer and Threat Signal and Toño Tejeda of Archetype and Minerva. The solos are mixed into the tracks in such a way as to make them exciting, exhilarating but not overly gratuitous. Short and sweet is the name of the game here. Braeden Rangno and Anna Kuchkova also lend their expertise to the album as a saxophonist and a cellist respectively.
Even with this array of musical talent at their disposal, it feels like the vocals are clearly intended to be the star of the show given their prominence in the mix. Solo’s aside, the other instruments are very much there in order to create atmosphere and to lay a foundation for the vocals to sit upon. While this is a valid (and incredibly common) musical choice, some of the instrument’s melody felt somewhat constrained. There isn’t a memorable riff or a hook coming from anywhere other than the vocal line. The guitars always felt one step from achieving a fantastic, memorable sounding riff only to fall back to make way for the vocals. Indeed, whenever a guitar riff or bass line does manage to stand out, it is often because it is clearly heavily inspired by either a Tool or Meshuggah riff. Interesting and memorable instrument-driven melodies and vocal hooks do not need to be treated as if they are mutually exclusive: even bands that don’t feature bombastic guitar work like Ghost manage to vary where their melodic hooks are coming from; whether it be the vocals, guitar, keys or drums.
For all their bravado in putting an Ernst Fischer quote on their Bandcamp page, it’s clear that Trailight fully intended to put their money where their mouths are in the delivery of the album. The opening track is called ‘Bread and Circus’ in reference to the ancient Roman tradition of distracting the masses from the political failings of the state. Each song’s lyrics read like a treatise on society, complacency and crises of identity. Homage is also paid to Trailight’s first album by working a recording of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “A time comes when silence means betrayal” speech into the track ‘Silence’. As well as being a nice nod to Trailight’s origin, it also feeds into the album’s wider theme of challenging a society that is broken and is in need of change. And yet, compared to other politically motivated bands like System of a Down, Rage Against The Machine and Gojira, Trailight’s messages simply don’t seem to come across as strongly as they could. Perhaps due to that hypnotic vocal style which lacks the raw power of System, the codas in the lyrics are poetic and therefore not as punchy and relatable as Rage’s “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”. With Rush as one of Trailight’s listed influences, one wonders if a conceptual album a la 2112 would have been a more effective direction for them.
While it is impossible to deny that Cordell has a great vision for Trailight, this album ultimately ends up falling just short of the mark. This is frustrating because, on paper, Trailight seems to have everything going for it: They enlist the help of some seriously talented musicians, and yet the music is treated as a delivery service for the vocals. The writing aims to follow Fischer and shake the listener out of complacency and yet the lyrics lack emotional impact. The band has a lot of photography experience and artistic talent to fall back on and yet their music video for ‘Chasing Daylight’ is almost a showpiece for cultural appropriation of indigenous iconography (which a British Columbia – based band really ought to be more sensitive to) that I will not showcase on this website.
Still, with Trailight, no words are empty. Chasing Daylight does have its interesting and nuanced moments. There is clearly some excellent musical talent on display here even if it could have been deployed more effectively. Most of all, it’s worth applauding Trailight for its lofty goals. In times like these, albums like Chasing Daylight are exactly the kind of album that artists ought to be aiming to make. I truly hope that this is the first album of many that aims to reflect a broken society back at itself, to shake our complacency, to show that the world is changeable. And to help change it.
Recommended tracks: Chasing Daylight, Soliloquy
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Hawkwind, Tool, Gojira, Soen, A Perfect Circle
You may also like: Diagonal, Khaima, Sermon, Advocacy
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram |
Label: Self Published
Trailight is:
Cory McBain – Guitars, Keys
Steven Parent – Drums
Omer Cordell – Vocals, Bass, Keys, Additional guitars
Guest musicians:
Oswin Wong -Lead guitar; Chasing Daylight / Vacuous
Toño Tejeda – Lead guitar on Disintegration
Cory McBain – First lead guitar on Vacuous
Braeden Rangno – Saxophone on Vacuous
Anna Kuchkova – Cello on Soliloquy
Alannah Clark – Backing vocals
Meris Williams – Backing vocals
Conan Freeman – Additional vocals on Vacuous
Photography by David Cohen
Artwork by Omer Cordell
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