On its new album, Blind Divine honors a dreamy dark-ambient
tradition, and adds generous helpings of hazy shoegaze, but if you
listen more closely, you’ll hear the Tucson-based band exploring
something more substantial.
Against soundscapes not unlike those created by Brian Eno and Daniel
Lanois for U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, guitarists Daniel Martin
Diaz and Damian Demetrius Diaz weave vines of leads and rhythm,
employing various effects to create fascinating textures and strategically add smears of distortion. The result approximates the
layering of abstract elements over a realistic painting. Assertive,
robust bass lines and booming tribal/post-punk drums recall the better
alternative styles of the 1980s, and a cover of The Cure’s “The
Figurehead” drives the point home.
Vocalist and lyricist Paula Catherine Valencia has one of those
voices in which lyrics seem to start out as wordless breaths but are
transformed into solid words when they reach the listener’s conscious
brain. Her lyrics seem to subscribe to a nondenominational spirituality
based on sacred suffering, sacrifice and flares of sublime joy,
frequently in the name of love.
Haunting instrumentals emphasize Blind Divine’s hypnotic, almost
cinematic approach, which makes sense, considering that the band’s
music has been used in three feature films and many TV shows. Listening
to Breathing Spell, one can imagine wandering through a
crumbling Victorian mansion, the walls of which whisper subtle
secrets.
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2009.