I’d like to paint you a word picture, if that’s alright; the setting is a sidewalk alongside a busy road. There’s a chill in the air despite the persistent sunlight, and yet, the day feels rather bleak. It’s early afternoon, and I have decided to embark on a rather lengthy walk. During this time I will be spinning Triumph & Disaster, the fourth full-length album from We Lost the Sea, and their second since the tragic loss of singer Chris Torpy. I load up the first song and notice something out of the corner of my eye—yes, I did see that right. The instrumental progressive post-metal album I’ve picked up has a fifteen-minute long opening track. Because I’m a terrible reviewer at heart, my brain does the only thing it can: it leaps to the nearest conclusion and prepares for a very long hour.
Fortunately, my brain is also capable of admitting when it’s wrong, and I’m happy to report that my initial (and entirely unfounded) dread was completely misplaced. You see, I’ve sampled a lot of instrumental metal lately, and I’ve found that far too often this genre pushes the patience of the listener beyond what it should. Without vocal hooks or melodies, it’s easy to lose the structure of a song, which in turn means the mind is capable of and prone to wandering, severely lessening the impact of the album. But We Lost the Sea refuse to let you go once they have you. “Towers,” the aforementioned opener, features just about the catchiest (albeit in a melancholy way) piano line I think I’ve heard in a metal tune, and its various builds and releases make for a surprisingly relaxing listen. While I maintain it doesn’t necessarily have to be fifteen full minutes in length, it justifies a lot more of that runtime than expected, and makes a great start to the album.
Triumph & Disaster is a concept album, which is a bit tricky considering there are no lyrics present until the closing track. And yet, the story is there, a tragic post-apocalyptic journey that watches the last lights of humankind whimper out. The album explores twisted anger (“The Last Sun”), unfathomable sorrow (“Dust”), and complex emotional responses to events that are all the more powerful for not being contained in a language of words. At times, this is a minimalistic listen, dialing back heavily on the metal elements and letting quiet guitar leads just do their thing. Other times, it’s loud, defiant, and bleakly furious, switching between the two effortlessly. Speaking of which, guitarists Matthew Kelly, Matt Harvey, and Mark Owen all deserve some serious props for the work they’ve done, alongside bassist Kieran Elliot and Nathaniel D’Ugo, the drummer keeping everything together no matter how hectic things get. With no singer to hide behind, everyone in We Lost the Sea needs to bring their best work to bear on Triumph & Disaster—and they do.
My favorite moments on Triumph & Disaster are the ones where We Lost The Sea explores their sorrowful side. “A Beautiful Collapse” is extremely well-named; it’s exactly that—a stunning rising action preludes a sudden descent into despair that transitions beautifully into “Dust” when it finishes. These songs are all the more powerful for their relative succinctness; I find I’m more drawn to the shorter songs, which tend to also be morose in nature; “Distant Shores” and “Dust” feel like interludes alongside titans like “Parting Ways,” but they also work as complete songs in their own right, and they’re among the best on display over the 65-minute album.
Recovering from personal tragedy is never easy. It would have been perfectly understandable for We Lost the Sea to have simply disbanded in 2013 after Torpy’s tragic loss; it would have been understandable too if the band had recruited a new vocalist. Instead, they have become a truly good instrumental band. Triumph & Disaster is powerful and affecting in ways that make the lack of vocals a strength, rather than a weakness, or even something all that noticeable; this album is far more triumph than disaster, a deeply affecting journey, and an album I’m happy to return to time and time again.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Translation Loss Records
Websites: welostthesea.bandcamp.com |welostthesea.com | facebook.com/welostthesea
Released Worldwide: October 4th, 2019
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