A Dark Beauty

According to them, Winter Dust is a group who intend to “Explore and mix all the members’ influences from emo and hardcore to post-rock.” They just released their newest album, Autumn Years. The album is beautiful to hear. It is comprised almost entirely of instrumental songs that have dark edges while still maintaining a sense of calm. The album is surprisingly easy on the ears. It’s not an album you have to pay a great amount of attention to; however, there are some songs you will want to give your full attention. “Cities Where I’d Stay,” for instance, is a 7:45 minute long song that has multiple phrases throughout, which all connect by the end.

The album does have a few sections of lyrics, but they are screamed rather than actually following a melodic line, and therefore are fairly incomprehensible. Yet, nothing else about the album besides those few moments of screaming feels heavy. This is an album that people shouldn’t feel the need to shy away from simply because there is screaming. Winter Dust does a wonderful job of making sure that everything surrounding those few screams are beautiful and instrumentally intricate.

The one anomaly of the album though is the first song, “Fake Beaches.” This is the one track that does have a melodic vocal line. The song also has more of a pop-punk edge compared to the rest of the album, which is more intricate.

A perfect example of that intricacy and the aforementioned dark edge is the second song, “Undertow.” It begins with a haunting piano intro, strings and a heavy cymbal roll that flows into a double-bass pedal riff and back into just the piano– and that’s just the beginning. The song is not only graceful and intricate, but it is also simply a fascinating listen. With so much electronic and over-the-top pop music that is out today, Autumn Years seems so different. Yet, it is that wonderful kind of different. It is the type of music that seems to have a wonderful old soul, but is still perfectly fresh.