Son Lux – Bones

Ever the evolving project, Ryan Lott’s Son Lux – now a three-piece – have migrated again, from Joyful Noise to Glassnote. This is, by one count, Lott’s tenth release (EPs, reimaginings, etc.) – and thus far he has shown a visionary’s restlessness.

Thematically robust, Bones is as operatic and orchestral as any Son Lux offering to date, deftly conjuring scale and drama, evoking time, change, and death. Swooning, wavering synths are the breeze over cold, industrious percussion, with each moment feeling distinct yet part of the whole. Flight is spacey, airborne; This Time is rich, earthy and tribal. Lott’s unique choral vocal, often pained or modulated, reaches bassier depths on I Am The Others.

But to follow the joyous bombast of Lanterns, we need more than a pinned-on structure and a handful of catchy cuts. Having previously flexed such diverse sonic muscles, the band now tread a more familiar (albeit proven) path, too practiced to elicit that same frisson, but effective nonetheless.