Locaton: Nijmegen
Country: Netherlands
Genre: Experimental rock, electronica
Full length: So Lonely In Heaven
Format: CD, digital, CD/digital, double vinyl
Label: Metropolis Records (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)
Release date: January 17, 2025
The vocals of Edward Ka-Spel, who evokes David Bowie and Roger Waters (the band has been compared to classic Pink Floyd), sustain the increasingly trippy and experimental sound of the Legendary Pink Dots' "So Lonely In Heaven." The album is both captivating and inhospitable, evoking a secluded science-fictional experience that’s ideal for iPod walks or watching YouTube videos that depict journeys through the solar system and beyond.
Created by members from three different countries, it was composed of ideas that were discussed online over the course of several months between members from three countries. They were able to combine those ideas to create the most eclectic recording you’ll ever hear, which could potentially become a new milestone in experimental psychedelic electronic rock. While listening you'll wonder who could have foreseen the emergence of a band like this back in 1980. Releasing what seems an infinite number of albums—more than forty in total—they persistently challenged the traditional notion of turning lyrical and musical concepts into epic narratives.
"So Lonely In Heaven" showcases the band's inventiveness and resourcefulness, creating another of a long line of progressive records as far from predictable and formulaic as a band can get. With praise as descriptive as the range of emotions in their compositions (a "difficult proposition to pin down," "beguiling visions of doom," "a dystopian soundtrack"), it is clear both fans and journalists are taking notice of this album. I gather it's a concept likened to the grimdark futures illustrated in Heavy Metal magazine or the Blade Runner movies, about some artificial intelligence that somehow came into being, creating a heaven of its own making and assimilating all of mankind rather than replacing it.
Based on the narrative path the album seems to take, its description in the accompanying bio, deeper meanings seem to reveal themselves with each song. The band's use of ethereal, eerie electronic sounds and their technique of introducing them gradually into naturally occurring, solemn, melancholic, and solitary themes, letting the electronic sounds become more noticeable until they become prominent indicates a compositional approach unrivaled by other cyberpunk or electronica musicians.
Humanity appears to be invited to participate in this manufactured heaven in a fable that corresponds to their previous album, "Chemical Playschool Volumes 23 & 24," but what lies beyond? What has been created for us, and how much of ourselves do we lose, if anything, if we accept? Consider the album's title and description: what has come into being is all seeing, all knowing, and all encompassing, and it promises to bring you back to life in a new way where you'll be able to evolve into anything you wish and be connected to everyone, but you'll exist in perpetual aloneness and loneliness. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Erik Drost: Acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar
Randall Frazier: synthesisers, devices
Edward Ka-Spel: Voice, devices
Joep Hendrikx: Live electronics, devices
Track list:
1. So Lonely In Heaven
2. The Sound of the Bell
3. Dr. Bliss ‘25
4. Sleight of Hand
5. Choose Premium: First Prize
6. Darkest Knight
7. Cold Comfort
8. Wired High: Too Far To Fall
9. How Many Fingers In the Fog
10. Blood Money: Transitional
11. Pass The Accident
12. Everything Under The Moon
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