There’s a storm brewing outside. The air is heavy and damp. The depth of field is hard to gauge. It’s as if the static that pulls up the hair on the back of your neck is signaling the near impact of a meteor falling to earth.
As the sophomore release from Denver’s Orbit Service, references to “the huge, billowing pair of gas and dust clouds from the super-massive star Eta Carinae” are quite fitting for this musical voyage. Songwriter, lead singer and guitarist Randall Frasier has never been lacking in creativity or a vast knowledge of how to use production to take the listener into untapped galaxies of sound.
Where spectrums have most shifted has been in Randall’s vocal reaches, maintaining the subdued vapors of tranquility while cloaking the balls-to-the-ceiling heights of Syd Barrett. Carinae continues to expand on the test tube levels of experimentation and landscapes first introduced on 2004’s Twilight, making it a perfect companion to a Dark Side of the Moon listening session.
Each song stands on its own, capturing your ears and mind with complex structures and instrumental surprises, leading to dark, lyrical sonnets, “I’m falling, I’m fragile / Likely to break from the weight of havoc of a Mad Hatter backlash / The price I have paid / The price I have paid,” from “The Truth Eludes Me.” Even so, the experience, like the classic albums from decades ago, is best absorbed from the first to the last track.
Orbit Service is also known for taking this experience fluidly to the stage. Your chance to see them comes Friday, April 7 at hi-dive where they’ll perform with former singer/guitarist/keyboardist from Drop the Fear, Sarah Marcogliese, along with Mathematicians and Astrophagus, who is releasing their new album, Casualite, that night. The official street date for Songs of Eta Carinae isn’t until May, but you can get your copy now at Twist & Shout or on the night of the show.
