Swedish post-rock trio BARRENS have released 'A Nothing Expands', the third single from their forthcoming album Corpse Lights, out on 12th September via Pelagic Records.
Corpse Lights is the name given to the folk belief that small coloured lights often appear near the home of someone about to die, leading them along the path to their eventual resting place. Often considered to be evidence of the soul leaving the body, the concept of corpse lights embodies BARRENS’ approach to creating music as a cathartic release; not just because they want to, but because they have to. Their writing process is one of joy, light, and release as much as it is dark, heavy, and tense.
Five years in the making, Corpse Lights sees BARRENS strike a breathtaking balance between light and dark, beauty and brutality, calm and chaos as these three friends refine their formidable command of compositional dynamics.
One listen to BARRENS and the revelation that Markku Hildén, Johan G. Winther, and Kenta Jansson had already been playing and touring together before forming the band suddenly makes sense. In 2018, Markku joined Scraps of Tape, Johan and Kenta’s other project, as a live drummer for tours in Europe and China. Recognising an immediate chemistry, the outlines for what would become BARRENS were sketched out in countless vans, trains, planes, and bars as they travelled together across the world.
Back home, the trio wasted no time and quickly turned their collection of notes and motifs into demos, drawing unique inspiration from the experiences they shared, as well as exploring uncharted territories. The result was their first album, Penumbra (2020), a dense and elegant collection of instrumental, synth-driven post-rock pieces brimming with passion and maturity.
Recorded and produced by Kristofer Jönson, who also helmed Penumbra, and mixed and mastered once again by Cult of Luna’s Magnus Lindberg, Corpse Lights features shimmering synthesizers and sprawling guitars propelled by exhilarating drums and percussion. In addition, BARRENS use space, silence, and atmosphere on these new songs as another instrument, if not another band member entirely.
In their time, BARRENS have supported the legendary Mogwai, God Is An Astronaut, signed with the famed Pelagic Records, and opened ArcTanGent's main stage for the 2023 edition.
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