Jacksonville, Florida-based Shoegaze band Leaving Time cements its recording career with the release of it’s debut full-length album, Angel In The Sand. Building off of an explosive string of EPs, consisting of 2021’s Self-Titled and 2022’s II, the band has established a heavy, grunge-tinged combination of blistering nu-metal rhythms, searing effect-laden guitar melodies, and soaring, icy vocals. Leaving Time hints at a subtle dichotomy of heavy, cathartic distortion with glimmers of calmer delicacy- supplementing moments of breakneck speed with tense, minimal arrangements. The residual effect can be felt throughout, as momentum ebbs and weaves around pivotal moments of resignation that work to break moments of uniformity within the tracklist.

With this brooding delicacy, Angel In The Sand’s opening track, “Fading,” sprawls forth, centered around moody, reverb-drenched guitar lines and a slogging drum rhythm. Frontman Reed Cothren’s distant and sweeping vocals articulate scarce and ambiguous lyrics of decay— all things fading with time. As promised, the song fades into feedback before the abrupt second track, “Choke,” explodes out of the calm; monstrous shoegaze rhythm guitar unfurls beneath an accentuating snare beat while phasor and reverb-heavy guitar lines torch the instrumental.

The subsequent tracks on Angel In The Sand play and expand upon the ideas found within the first two, juxtaposing brief moments of subdued repose with throttling shoegaze pyrotechnics and propulsive rhythms. The standout track and third single released before the album, “Arm’s Length,” melds these sonic sentiments most effectively, offering an infectious stop-and-start groove alongside emotive harmonics and an omnipresent bassline.

Halfway through the album, it becomes apparent that Angel In The Sand suffers from a certain uniformity that suggests Leaving Time crafted each song with the same ingredients and ideas in mind every time. The individual tracks all have compelling sonic qualities, either delivering on their quota of blistering weight or subdued glum. Yet within the context of the album, every passing song sounds increasingly derivative and stale; the guitar tones stay the same, the song structures hesitate to venture too far out of standard conventions, and Cothren’s lyrics read consistently bleak and ambiguous, wallowing within nondescript heartbreak.

Leaving Time’s promotional material sells their newest effort as an existential exercise about “accepting and embracing the absurdity and infinity of existence.” However, the band doesn’t quite fit their bill in both lyrical subject matter and instrumental exploration. What’s left is a record struggling to keep its head above the harsh waters of redundancy, a downward-flowing stream many sonically similar bands have found themselves trying to swim up.

Angels In The Sand proves Leaving Time has the chops to put together a good-sounding album, but it still needs to create a body of work that stands out against others and bears the unmistakable mark of a Leaving Time record.

Rating: 6.2/10
Favorite Song: “Arm’s Length”