Pillar of Light - Caldera

Pillar of Light is a doom metal band from Detroit, Michigan who hit the scene in 2023 with their demo, “Leaving.” The band is now gracing us with the monumental album “Caldera.”

Pillar of Light’s brand of doom includes sludge and even post-metal elements. They weld their brand of doom/sludge like the deadliest weapon in the world—this album is crushing in every sense of the word. The music pours into my ears like cement, filling up and hardening as each layer becomes nearly unbreakable with its weight.

So yeah, it’s heavy. But not only because of the music. The emotional weight of this album is of Godzilla-sized proportions. At times, this album is hard to listen to—and I mean that as the highest of compliments. The heart and soul of this band has been poured into every note—they make me feel it too. 

It’s a rare album that can be a monolithic wall of sound and still also be very discernible music. “Caldera,” is an album that I can play and just let it wash over me as it consumes my world. It’s also an album that I can sit down and really dive into—this is highly detailed music with depth to the bottom of the void itself.

The production is immense and one of the most important factors on the album. The density to its sound makes every moment seem bottomless and weighty—even the clean and quiet passages.  

Vocally, Aaron takes a shouting/hardcore type style similar to something you might hear from Crowbar or Cult of Luna instead of an actual growl. It works in his favor as this approach allows a gut wrenching performance, a cry from the shadows that echoes throughout.

The album’s tempo is consistent, usually a slow to mid-paced crush but there moments of speedy aggression are found as well and are always well placed to help break up any potential monotony. There is a cinematic scope to the songs; their longer lengths allow a lot of ideas to be presented and unfurled in a natural way; the subtle use of keys helps a lot of this

The band is at their best when they build up the songs because they always do it smartly and steadily. 

“Wolf To Man,” begins this way, clean guitars and Gothic keys building its tapestry. The vocals and bass arrive to the mix just after the one minute mark. The added emotions already make the song as heavy as anything this year but even moreso once the distortion kicks in.  

The languished groove from the guitars calls out as a cry in the night even while they provide a gripping narrative. The bass and drums add another dimension of pain and push the song into a new kind of blackness. The halfway point presents a clean style once again but the echoes of the passages before still echo in the mind even as the song transfers into another direction. 

The album seems to become more confident as it descends deeper down. “Spared,” uses clean passage to high effectiveness like the opening song does but it’s less methodical and more direct, at least in some ways. 

I find the guitars to be more intricate and allow a better sense of melody to fill in the liminal spaces of the song. The lead guitar is surprisingly catchy and I love how the rest of the music bends and moves around it, resulting in a song that feels solid yet amorphous at the same time.  

After the solo around the 5:24 mark, the rhythm settles into a bone grinding gallop and very astute drumming. The vocals ride upon these waves and a low growl crests on top of them as the band rides this turbulent sea of nearly palpable heaviness. Around the 7:35, it's as if the song was picked up, shaken, and dropped. As it shatters, the band explodes in a masterclass of fury.  

“Infernal Gaze,” is one of my favorites on the album. The vocals are both chilling and captivating as they crawl from the dismal wrecking provided by the instrumental side.

Somber guitar leads are plentiful, adding a tragedy to the song's towering poetry. The song is at its best when the drums match the intensity of the vocals, while the music eminates etheral passages.

After the five and a half minute mark, a touching clean bridge, gentle in some ways, provides something of a respite though the vocals and drums still bring the pain. I love it when the album weaves these light and dark paths together. 

The fittingly titles “Certain End” brings the album to a close with a nearly 12 minute opus that is as much of a banger as it is a thinker.

Growing from the layered clean opening, the song is a breathing, living entity. The vocals claw and grasp for life but the music creates a vacuum that threatens to suck out the light.

The shade left behind for the halfway point is tragedy incarnate-totally and utterly hopeless. 

Pillar of Light’s “Caldera,” captures the raw, primal power of doom metal in such a way that even the most ardent fans of the genre will be taken back at just how much gut-wrenching horror and trepidation emanates from it.  

I haven't given a lot of perfect scores this year (and I don't asign numbers to my reviews) but this is a 10 out of 10 album.