Spirit Adrift’s fourth album Enlightened In Eternity is the first album without any connections to Gatecreeper, as frontman Nate Garrett stepped aside from those band duties so as to focus on this, his main band.
Already one of the stronger traditional heavy metal bands in the genre, Garrett has set himself up some high expectations as the last two albums, namely 2017’s Curse of Conception and 2019’s Divided By Darkness garnered high marks from fans and reviewers all around. Will the band meet those high marks?
Opening with the powerful “Ride Into Light,” Spirit Adrift start things off on a mid-tempo gallop with Garrett’s guitar playing coming through melodically to balance out his gruff vocal delivery. “Cosmic Conquest” is a noticeably speedier affair with more technical aplomb, giving way to Marcus Bryant’s pounding drums. There is a nice allusion on a later solo to Pantera’s “Floods” on an album which features Garrett going to the well on his influences for writing heavy music.
“Harmony of Spheres” features one of the best sounding back ends of a song on the entire album, the solo may not itself rise above the song, but it is a well-played fun section that is sure to elicit a positive reaction from the trad metal crowd. “Stronger Than Your Pain” comes out slowly with almost a sludge-like crawl about it, then it kicks into high gear with Garrett letting his affinity for Crowbar come through on the opening section, even the song title feels like Kirk Windstein has used this before.
Album closer “Reunited In The Void” brings to close a story that is alluded to on the album’s cover, namely of two dogs, one of which belonged to Garrett and the other to Bryant. The song features some Sabbath and Type O Negative riffs throughout but, towards the middle of the track you get the sense of galloping and the clicking of a dog’s tags while running. This nearly 11 minute salute is a powerful sendoff for the band to some of their closest friends and a fitting close to a strong album. Spirit Adrift haven’t been around that long but they certainly do heavy metal right. RIP Dawkins and Lizzy.
(released October 16, 2020 on 20 Buck Spin)
