Ben Chasny returns with his tenth album under the Six Organs banner. There is a slightly softer approach compared to The Sun Awakens from last year but thankfully the electric guitar (which has improved the already formidable Six Organs sound no end) has been retained. There are few bands who use such a limited palette of instruments (i.e. just a guitar) for so many albums without sounding repetitive but Chasny can always be counted on to breath new life into those six old strings.
When Six Organs are good, it is awe inspiring and with Shelter from the Ash my awe has well and truly been inspired. The album begins on a mesmerising note with "Alone with the Alone," named and inspired by the Henry Corbin book. Chasny's fingerpicking is sublime; his pull-offs and hammer-ons add a layer of intricacy to the already elaborate fabric of the piece. Gorgeous acoustic guitar makes up the main body of the song and the howling, primal roar of the electric guitar (at first Chasny alone and later with producer Tim Green picking up the axe) adds an element of desperation to the mood. Hushed chants of the song/book's title make the mood seem even bleaker but still enthralling.
"Coming to Get You" is the fiery epicentre of the album. Blistering guitar solos are like smears of paint over the canvas of chugging palm-muted guitar and drum rhythms. The song finishes as a crude but intense portrait of a hellish scene, like Goya if he was in a psychedelic guitar band. Immediately afterwards is the tender and elegiac "Goddess Atonement." The song is dedicated to the late Charles Gocher of the Sun City Girls and would not sound out of place on Torch of the Mystics. The East-meets-West rhythms and melodies do not sound like exploitative exotica (which the Sun City Girls have been often, wrongly, accused of) but a hybrid language like Creole; imbued with its own life.
Six Organs of Admittance may sometimes confound and surprise but disappointment is not a word I associate with Chasny. Thankfully after several runs through Shelter from the Ash my prediction has been proven to be true. This is a captivating album, full of passion and power. Here's to another ten albums.
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