Lone Assembly – Knots & Chains

Last October, I recommended Lone Assembly’s My Life’s Solid in the Weekly5, praising its swelling sound ebbing and flowing in the catacombs of their sonic cathedral. And I felt a strange familiarity back then that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Fastforward to today, it was obvious from the first note: The similarities between Lone Assembly and the UK post-punk revivalists of the Editors are more than on the nose, not only because the voices of Raphaël Bressler and the Editors’ Tom Smith are eerily similar. Both bands’ songs are always cloaked in a hymnic dress, both are drawing from post-punk and new wave somberness while maintaining a solid rock foundation. Both build gigantic synth melodies. So, if you‘re admiring the Editors, you won‘t go wrong with Lone Assembly‘s debut album.

Naturally, the question arises whether Lone Assembly can be easily discarded as mere copycats. And although that‘s a harsh and tricky aspect to assess with a debut album on hand, my preliminary verdict would be: No.

Lone Assembly carve out enormous caverns—full of shimmering darkness. Gothic rock cathedrals with the occasional shard of light cutting through the dense and dusty halls; it’s a sonic chiaroscuro, and a recipe that the quartet from Geneva doesn’t really stray too far from throughout the ten tracks on Knots & Chains. And that’s maybe my only gripe with this album: it’s playing it quite safely.

But to be fair, that’s also nitpicking because Knots & Chains excels brilliantly in establishing a signature sound and creating enough distinction from its obvious inspirations. Already with the slow marching opener, Call of the Swift, Lone Assembly introduce their towering productions that leave you with a notion of insignificance in the face of their grand opulence.

It’s songs like Call of the Swift, The Pain Keeper, In The Open, or A Dark Score that display Lone Assembly’s sophistication in contrast between despair and hope, slow reflection and anthemic climax. Pleading, daring, addictively gripping, and—frankly—brilliant.

There are a couple of attempts to deviate from these overwhelming hymns. Fantasy is a short, fast-moving push, Nocturnal Vision somewhat restrains the compositions, and My Life’s Solid plays with the contrast of brooding presence and cathartic expansion. And with Paler Streams, Lone Assembly also successfully tried their hands at a compelling ballad, pulling back the density and focusing on Bressler’s vocals.

However, amongst all these big gestures in Knots & Chains, there’s a clear thread of human vulnerability. The album’s name is a reference to restraining and limiting devices and hints at the exploration of all facets of control. The control cultivated within ourselves, represented by My Life’s Solid and The Pain Keeper, the control others exert in You’re Pulling at the Same Strings and the control imposed by our environments in The City Works Like This.

And yet, both with specific tracks like In the Open and with the striving hymnic quality of their songs, Lone Assembly propose an escape from those knots and chains that control us. Raphaël Bressler explains: “The album takes shape like a cycle, moving from suffocation to openness, from closed spaces to greater, albeit fragile, breathing space.“

That’s why, after listening to Knots & Chains, you’re not left in complete despair but invigorated with a strange mix of melancholia and strength, weirdly freed from any shackles, and empowered to keep going forward.