By that I don't mean that Spirit Adrift is once again a project centered solely around founding member Nate Garrett, though he still is the longest running member and, as the vocalist/guitarist, the most important puzzle piece. So it's not the one-man-band-ness of Chained To Oblivion that Infinite Illumination calls back to. But rather it's the genre reconfiguration that happened between Curse Of Conception and Divided By Darkness that was noticeable enough that our review of the latter builds its premise around Spirit Adrift putting its heavy metal side way ahead of its doom side.
The news that this would be the final Spirit Adrift came as a bit of a surprise considering how recent the project is. The band's debut is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, though with the band having been prolific enough to fill this decade with seven full-lengths and a couple of additional EPs and splits. It's not out of the realm of possibility that the heptalogy was pre-planned in advance or that the band decided on the way there that they've said all that they needed to say, but the intriguing thing about Infinite Illumination is that it undoes the aforementioned genre reconfiguration and brings back the doom side.
This doesn't entirely mean that Infinite Illumination is a rethread of Chained To Oblivion or Curse Of Conception, even if that heavy/doom mix that leans more towards doom is clearly coming from the same source. One change is that the lineup, aside from Garrett, is completely different. Most of it is the same one that also recorded Ghost At The Gallows (a pretty good one too) with the only change being new guitarist Jason Dahlke, also of Fulci. Infinite Illumination's nuance is adding a dash of epic doom metal.
There isn't necessarily a lot of the melodramatic Candlemass, more punchy than theatrical both in riffing and vocals not too far off from Khemmis (which makes sense that the two released a split), and a lot of the songs do still have heavy metal coming to the forefront of doom, but the few ones that go over seven minutes do have a sense of grandeur to them albeit more of a full throttle version. Some of that "epic" sense comes from the guest solos in the last three tracks, courtesy of James Murphy (ex-Death, ex-Testament), Arthur Rizk (Eternal Champion, Sumerlands), and Steve Jansson (Crypt Sermon, Daeva).
I'm pretty sure I would've loved it even if it wasn't a swansong. But as it is, it's an amazingly strong effort to call it quits to. Thank you for the music, good luck and godspeed!
