SUCCESSORS

An album I altogether missed when it came out, Successors, the follow-up to their 2017 LP The Endless Shimmering [an album I should really revisit, and I shall, as I've all but forgotten it], is a 3-song EP. Of lesser significance to me, this is their first extended play release in 10 years! Their would-be quarantine drop, Successors came out through Sargent House in July 2020. Hard to believe how rapidly these past 2 years have flown... I really wonder now if each of these tracks are supposed to capture familiar themes and feelings of albums past; see below.

From the first notes of "Apanoid", this is indeed And So I Watch You From Afar, from the twinkling, dazzling electro-guitar arpeggios to the boisterous, unmistakable drumming and percussion of Chris Wee to their spacious drones. An at once huge song, it morphs and falls away to ambience. Perhaps, as I suggest above (and am more confidently with the following track), a callback to the Gangs era here.

"Odd Seal" is something that hearkens back to, to me, their golden era, of All Hail Bright Futures (2013) and Heirs (2015). Super bright indeed, this track honestly feels like it must have been left off from back then. I mean, it sonically sounds like "Wasps" or "A Beacon, A Compass, An Anchor" from that second album mentioned. Even if it, therefore, feels like old hat, I love this sound. It's so triumphant and fun. I'm assuming these callbacks and familiarities is why it's the EP's current 'Plays' breadwinner. There's something about that era that not only holds up, but is when many of their fans finally climbed aboard.

If indeed we are 'Succeeding' and calling back to prior eras and albums, then the 'bright' and gleaming "Radaghast" is of All Hail's 'bright' flavors haha. Very fun track. The guitar effects are huge, spacy, even heavenly.

Overall, a fun release. Not sorry I missed it, as I'm happy to be experiencing it now.