This San Diego, California-based Cinematic Soul Rock Band ‘A Lens to the Sun’ has released their full-bloom fourteen-song-long summer album called ‘The Persistency of Excitation’. They have crafted a layered, atmospheric production with dynamic storytelling that is intense and emotional to the core. The album name ‘The Persistency of Excitation’, along with their talismanic album art, is the most theatrical-rock signature to look forward to this season. Influenced by the likes of Radiohead, Muse, The Cure, and Porcupine Tree, the band ‘A Lens to the Sun’ enjoys curating innovative and captivating live performances to create an immersive experience for their audience, and this album is not shy of the craft.
Burn Before Reading is the slow burn start to their album with fervent poetic essence of a life in conflict. The lyric “there is no escape from here” leaves the listener in a suspended space, unresolved, echoing with the truth. That healing isn’t always about getting out, but about going through. The song rises in intensity post the lyrics, giving it a climactic ending.
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24 Summers is a continuation of that climactic music with a lyrical tapestry woven in elemental imagery. From the fire of angst, the emotional waters of heartbreak & despair to the seeding of love into the earth. “My feet against the flames. Now the water′s here, but I can’t feel the change, this time.” The production is immaculate with heavy bass & drums, piano peaks, and passionate vocals.
Escape Room and Everything I Do have a calmer tune and more relationship-aligned lyrics. The rhythm has a brilliance of reaching out to the listeners with a soulful melody that loops in the mind. Both songs closely explore the emotional entrapment that intimate relationships often put us into.
Pick Up the Knife is one of my favorites on the album. The song begins with a sound that carries a mellow cacophony of either a park or a church after service, or a family wedding post the rituals. The piano and the booming voice fill up the air with a beautifully penned poetry of hope and surrender. “Dive into the space of deeper truth. And I will too.” The violin and the French horn deserve a special mention as they define the story of this song.
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But these are the lines that have etched into my heart from the entire album, and I know it’ll take its sweet time to fade. “You there, are still alive inside of me, and tragically, you’ll find. What you want so bad is what we had.” The song Ripping Through Sutures in the Wounds We Shared is like a ghost moving past through the flesh body. It is the chills from listening to the song that’ll let you feel this shadow’s existence.
Next, Deliverance is a deeply grave song about numbing the light within. “Sometimes I forget to breathe. Sometimes I don’t feel a thing.” While it is The Quickening that really brings in the feeling of that hard kick in the stomach, as these songs talk about the failing Self in this modern society. “I sell all of my days for years of restless sleep. With opium dreams and telephone screens.”
The last three songs of this album, ‘The Persistency of Excitation’, are the reasons why every time you listen to the album, you will stick till the end. Song from the Tides to the Moon is my other favourite, says, “You cast your perfect reflection on me, And I bend to make you shimmer.” If I Let You Go says, “Even though I’ve given you so much pain, I know you’ll do it all again.” While Trapped Inside culminates this movie-like album in“Our tender moments sing in colors, Deep inside of me.” Yet“With so much to say to you, my lover, I’m not getting through.” Is this even true? The lyricist here really deserves a big applause for this entire album. I feel that the strength each word carries and the impact they have while crafting the rhythm around it are the most powerful elements of any song. This album is a masterpiece and deserves a much wider audience. Listen to A Lens to the Sun, now streaming on all music platforms.
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