Caul - The Long Dust

Sometimes music behaves like a good whiskey that needs many years of aging in order to receive its special aroma. The same is with Caul while it took Brett Smith around fifteen years to return to Malignant Records to release his solo album under the name 'The Long Dust'. I kept my eye on this project from the mid-nineties when I truly fell in love with its gentle and sad passages, but to be honest I lost the connection during last 4-5 years. Brett continued to record his material through other labels being very productive with a dozen of albums and singles in both physical and digital formats. And as soon as the new album just landed at my home, I have a great opportunity to remind of the tunes that I had been in love with many years ago and to feel the evolution of one of my once favorite projects.

The cover of this record puts me in extremely dreamy mood preparing for wide landscapes. With the thought about frailty of the things on earth, I dive deeply into the very depth of a truly emotional journey. Though the music of Caul is related to dark ambient genre, it is far from being squeezed into the edges of one specific style. From the very first tunes of 'The Long Dust', I start to recognize the techniques which once captured my imagination. All fifty minutes of this masterpiece are filled with an eternal sadness and loss engulfing me with each and every minute. The mastermind of Brett Smith succeeds in reflecting all the beauty of myth and mystery which continue to exist through ages and find their reflection in contemporary world.

Lots of post-rock elements like guitars and modern drum session comfortably exist alongside middle-eastern melodies and percussion helping the music to stay in constant evolutional process through the whole album run. You can find more airy compositions like "Veil of Sand", "Red Lightning" or "Pilgrimage" change places with rhythmic ones as "Anointing" and "The Long Dust", but even being different in their mood they still preserve the main core of staying always deeply emotional.

One more advantage of this album is its very stable structure; the journey has a constant drive without any sudden cracks between the atmospheres of the tracks. Gentle waves of soft background ambience are mixed with a light nostalgia - a perfect recipe of a balm to caress suffering souls. With the sounds of this amazing album I become convinced that loneliness and solitude can be very healthy processes which allow person to rethink his past and present life, to reevaluate once again the things which were close to the heart and to reanimate them with a new meaning. Sometimes solemn and sometimes sad, sometimes celestial, but always full of true feelings, this is a perfect music to take with you on the long trip escaping from haunting memories, escaping towards the future hope.

I feel myself guilty that I neglected the creations of Caul for quite a while already. This kind of music deserves a really close attention because of its complexity and diversity, its ability to activate listeners' imagination and capture it with the endless pulse of emotional energy. We are still in the first half of the year, but we already have a strong contender for the title of the "best album of the year". May 06 2013