Photo: Press
“It was really crazy,” School Of Seven Bells' Alejandra Deheza told Gigwise of recording their new, fourth and final album without the late, great Benjamin Curtis. “It was like he was still there. He was so present, that energy. There's little bits in the record where he's singing background vocals. It was really eerie.”
Curtis, who once part of the criminally-underrated but Bowie and Muse endorsed Secret Machines with brother Brandon, tragically lost his battle with cancer back in 2013. He was aged just 35, and a light that was extinguished far too early. Fortunately, as Deheza says, through SVIIB he can shine again, and the glow is absolutely immaculate.
SVIIB acts as a near-perfect eulogy to Benjamin - but not a morose and mournful lament, rather a mirrorball celebration of life. Opener 'Ablaze' is a sudden synth-pop rush of immediate affirmation - and the ultimate tribute to Curtis.
“It wasn't just about him, it was for him," Deheza told us of 'Ablaze'. "How much he changed my life as a person, as a musician, everything. It was just everything that I wanted to tell him about that. He was always the central force behind [the songs], the central character, the reason why I was writing it.”
That's before the glorious 'On My Heart' lifts the soul as it spins around the cycle of life: “There was a you before me, there was a me before you, and that’s the way it goes". The mantra of finding light after darkness and life after loss continues on the aching but crystal clear 'Open Your Eyes', when Deheza pines "you come close when you're in pain, do you feel better, babe? And you go cause you're afraid - you'll fall in love again".
Then the dream-pop of 'A Thousand Times More' continues this thread, standing as a stone commandment that we can all live our lives by: "You hear it every time, one day that tears are dry - in time the pain subsides and then you start to live again."
'Elias' sadly consists mostly of haze and little substance, the only lull on an otherwise flawless album. The lapse is brief though, as the skittering and space rock, dance-noir of 'Music Takes Me' lifts the record back to its skyward heights as we echo: "I just want to say, thank you, thank you for all you gave."
'Confusion' is a slow-burning, Berlin Trilogy-esque cinematic soundscape, owing itself to acceptance through memory, before 'This Is Our Time' seals the record by reminding us that while there will always be loss, all things must pass and there are some things you can not take away: "We are free to dream...our time is indestructible."
RIP Benjamin Curtis, you will be missed. While Deheza's tribute in putting this SVIIB together is a fitting and worthy tribute, it is not a final farewell but manifesting an eternal memory by creating an instant classic. You won't find a finer exercise in finding comfort through sound.
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