Blunt Blade’s ‘Forgiveness’ is not an album to be simply heard; it’s an album to be digested. Recorded at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios with both clarity and atmosphere in mind, the record ebbs and flows through rock, prog, electronic, and orchestral instrumentation alike, centring largely around Blunt Blade’s deep, morose vocals. The track “Sprawling”, pulses with a kind of kinetic energy in its holding of tension and release, as if one were waking up in a pleasant yet unsettling dream. “Justified” weaves a narrative that neither offers nor even demands a resolution; suggesting a quiet anger that will never be satisfied.
“Helpless” is apt to drag the mood down with a kind of noble and satisfying sluggishness. “Hindrance” is a cold and clinical exercise in futility that moves to the kind of icy groove one can imagine running on repeat inside one’s mind when feeling irreparably stuck. “The Journey to Hope/Esperanza” brings an odd peace to the track that has a melancholy tone, feels like something akin to trying to move forward from the despair that came before it.
“Careless Acts” provides something of a hard edge to the record. The track is acerbic in how it details the reality of making mistakes and feeling remorse for one’s actions. The final track “Forgiveness” is almost 10 minutes long. The track ascends in a gradual layering of strings, guitar swells, reversed effects, and fragmented rhythms that provide stark contrast. ‘Forgiveness’ is the kind of album that is not designed to function as background music. The music of Blunt Blade demands attention, even as it retreats into the bowels of its listener’s chest. Each track aches, a question, an answer, or a secret confided in the intimacy of darkness.
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