Kicking off with the beautiful Awoken, Glare Of The Sun’s debut is one of contrasting moments and sombre atmospheres. The instrumental opener takes in birdsong and summery shine to create an aura of sweetness, yet those feelings fall to the wayside when the German/Austrian seven-piece delve into the depths to pull One Step Nothing into view.
Crunched-down guitars and gruff voices fill the spaces surrounding sorrowful leads and doomy progressions before the ambience is stripped back to reveal the melancholy phrases of Extinction. All instrumentation and subtle cues of sadness, it allows GOTS to express ever more complexity and show that heaviness isn’t the be-all and end-all. Bittersweet post-rock rhythms cascade through the track before The Drowning And The Hush takes the mood back into weightier territory. Groundwater treads doomier paths on the journey to the end and it’s in GOTS’s favour that they filter all the different movements into the final product. A fantastic start to their career.
