Steve Roach – Darkest before dawn

1 review for Steve Roach – Darkest before dawn

1. 

   Kristen Tilbury / USA – 2022-11-22

   I do believe this is the hardest album I’ve ever reviewed. It’s a 74 min. piece that seems to stretch out to infinity. The piece is extremely atonal, very dronelike, and very subliminal, lacking any real structure or form.
   Oh well, I’ll do my best. This music was definitely composed by a genius; I’ve never heard an album quite so unique as this one. The music is so deep and dark it’s barely audible, inducing a more remote state of consciousness in the listener. Think of it in this way: if nighttime had a sound, what would it be? (One reviewer addressed this, by the way.) Even silence has a sound; however, no one can comprehend it because the universe is filled with noise. If we took away that noise, would we hear the silence? If we took away the darkness, would we be able to see light?
   This release is more of a question than an answer…I can’t review this album on it’s musical content. All I can say about it musically is that it’s like gazing at one of Rothko’s paintings (as reviewer said) and achieving absolutely no emotional state of being. As I said before, the music itself consists of a dark, repetitive drone that can merely be heard, not listened to. The wind affects us in a similar fashion. It can’t be listened to; it can only be acknowledged and ignored.
   Because Darkest Before Dawn” is more of a psycho-electric philosophy than a form of entertainment