Style: Epic, liturgical post-rock; compare to Radiohead, Sinead O’Connor
Top tracks: “The Hound of Heaven and Hell,” “This Is to Mother You”
The second in a series of EPs (the first, Make a Sound, was released in February) is another collection of unsettlingly beautiful ancient-future church music. Starting off with a Radiohead-like take on the classic hymn “What Wondrous Love Is This,” this Seattle band’s lush, orchestral songs take seriously both the woundedness of the human condition (especially their hushed version of Sinead O’Connor’s “This Is to Mother You”) and the atoning work of Christ, as on the sparse and punchy “Paschal Troparion.” As usual for the Opiate Mass, a listen to this material is a spiritually heavy, but rewarding, thirty minutes.
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