Band:	Spotlights
Album:	Alchemy For The Dead
Style:	Post-metal, Atmospheric sludge metal
Release date:	April 2023

01. Beyond The Broken Sky
02. The Alchemist
03. Sunset Burial
04. Algorithmic
05. False Gods
06. Repeat The Silence
07. Ballad In The Mirror
08. Crawling Toward The Light
09. Alchemy For The Dead

With a cover art that screams nu-ish post-grunge, Spotlights actually take alt metal in a more post-ish direction.

I admit that I'm not the biggest fan of what Spotlights chose as a cover art here, and while it's not completely unindicative about the album, it does feel a bit dated and reminescent of a scene I'm not very fond of now, as much as I liked stuff like Breaking Benjamin and Seether when I was a teenager. There is some common ground in between those bands and what Spotlights do here, leaving aside some of the tackiness and angst of the nu sound to blend alt metal with post-metal. I was a bit lucky that I was already familiar with Spotlight's previous material, one that was more in line with the atmo-sludge/post-metal sound, so I knew what I could be expecting, but the sound here is still quite the change.

I have a soft spot for bands that can play around with musical contrasts between light and dark or light and heavy, so Spotlights, which have already shown a penchant for shoegaze and post-rock injections in their music from as far back as their debut, going even further into creating an alt rock adjacent sound that blends with the Neurosis-esque heaviness is even more of a threat. The non-metal bits are not easy to pinpoint, with everything from The Cure to Hum to Smashing Pumpkins to Slowdive to Porcupine Tree being relevant points of comparison. But for each of them take an even mellower version and even more mood focused to blend nicely with the very atmospheric metal parts. The common ground for the contrast in the heaviness is this very atmospheric focus, so any touches of poppier accessibility and intricate progressiveness feel like pluses.

It would be a bit of a one-trick pony if that encapsulated the entire sound. The sound is overall pretty mellow, especially on the vocal front, and the runtime at 47 minutes is bordering on the overstaying its welcome, so I can see why Alchemy For The Dead might feel a bit too monotonous. But the band does just enough to keep that from happening. From its progressive leanings that create very interesting melodies and keys integrations, to some stoner metal licks and a general touch of psychedelia that reminds of some similarly gaze-y and mellow stoner metal like Windhand and Torche, to that tasteful saxophone in "False Gods", to a touch of trip hop in "The Alchemist".

So what you'll find on Alchemy For Fhe Dead music that is very mood focused but that manages to keep things both interesting and still very accessible.