Album Review: The Ninth Wave – Infancy
The Ninth Wave – Infancy
Words by Gary Lambert
Infancy is now fully formed, rejoice!. To bring you up to speed, the first half of this album was released back in May as “Infancy Part 1”, and now it is available in the complete format. I’ve been baffled by the concept of releasing an album as a consistent piece of artwork in two parts, but I love how our creative industry is trying to come up with more ways to invigorate, evolve and adapt to the tastes and needs of the modern audience. It is better to try something new rather than complain about things not being as good as they used to be. It’s only The Ninth Wave and the team behind them who will know if the experiment has been successful, but regardless I hope they continue to innovate.
Now on to the album itself. This is without doubt the encapsulation of first chapter in the career of The Ninth Wave. The atmospheric, technicolour gothic sound which has been the motif of this band is presented to the world on a huge canvas. In fact, I do not want to talk about the individual songs which make up Infancy. For me, in contrast to the two-part release schedule, Infancy feels like one long piece of music such is the elegance and flow of the record. In fact, it feels more like the undulating journey of a piece of classical music than a patchwork of pop songs.
In fact, the structure of the record for me is like a film soundtrack. In particular the iconic soundtrack of 1984’s The Terminator composed by Brad Fiedel. The synth-domination of the work creates an atmosphere of retrofuturism, whilst the doom and intimidation vocals from Hadyn Park-Patterson and Millie Kidd add to the vast feeling of oppression from their work. I found myself consciously trying to avoid taking meaning and understanding from the words of the pair too because more than any album I’ve listened to in a long while I felt that the vocals were another layer, another instrument into the mix. To find out that a song was about loneliness or heartbreak would be to humanise the otherworldliness of the record. It is the soundtrack of driving in the pitch black along the motorway. Whilst each moment may seem similar, when viewed as a whole you see the peaks, troughs, slaloms, vistas of epic beauty and beyond. I would go as far to say that Infancy is an inspiring, powerful piece of work which you should go out of your way to listen to ASAP.
Now that Infancy has come to fruition, where next will The Ninth Wave go? I don’t care as long as I get to go with them.
Listen to Infancy here:
