Forgive me for stating the obvious, but writing a good album is harder than writing a good track and writing a good track is harder than writing a good riff. The process of building more intricate and complete works of art is not additive - it's multiplicative. By which I mean that the complexity of the parts of an album is not simply found in the relative complexity each of its parts; the need to balance the different elements (which go beyond just the disparate instruments and include composition, production, repetition, and more) grows as more elements are added. Which is why crafting a well balanced and cohesive album is so difficult.
World Maker by Psychonaut is an example of how to do this right. This fact also contains the key to why I really like this release where previous works from the band have left me wanting. World Maker, except for a few stumbles in its beginning, moves and breathes as one unit, going from strength to strength. Those stumbles are the first two tracks. The opening one can be excused, as it is a deeply personal piece that deals with fatherhood. And yet, even though we can understand why, it still sits alone, divided not just from "Endless Currents" but the rest of the album. I would have put the track at the end of the album, one last personal statement that would have served as a great coda, and maybe re-wrote "Endless Currents" to stand out more.
OK, now that we've gotten our counter examples out of the way we can dive into the good stuff and there's a lot more good than bad here. Most of it is condensed into perhaps the best trio of tracks that I've heard in a long time. "You Are the Sky" kicks off with aggressive harsh vocals and hard to resist grooves, backed up by excellent drum work. In fact, the entire album has frankly amazing drums, understated and subtle where they need to be, punchy and loud where more kick is required, and overall just incredibly well composed and recorded with a lot of passion. This passion is on full display on "Everything Else Is Just the Weather", which blends seamlessly with the end of "You Are the Sky". It also introduces some serious Pink Floyd vibes, building on the emotional core of its opening, acoustic moments to deliver a cascading, moving catharsis near its end. This peak feeds gorgeously into "And You Came With Searing Light", perhaps the album's standout track. It brings back the aggression, the acoustic touches, the groovy riffs, all of the elements we've heard on the album so far, and binds them all together with a deft touch. Psychonaut are in true form on this track, spinning massively dynamic riffs and using them to propel the track's vocals straight home.
There's a lot more after that I'll leave for you to explore by yourselves but it's safe to say that this is Psychonaut's best effort to date. They always had potential but World Maker sees them hone that potential into a more cohesive, convincing, and enjoyable whole. It showcases the importance of fully understanding the parts that make up your whole, sanding away the friction points between them, and forging them into a complete, and larger than the sum of its parts, work of art. I invite you to join me in appreciating just how well crafted and put together this album is, despite a few missteps at its beginning. It leaves me very hopeful for the future of Psychonaut as they work out the last few kinks in their sound and continue to push forward.
World Maker released today, Friday, October 24th. Click on through to the Bandcamp link above to grab it.