“In The Darkness With The Spirit Of The Lake (a family tragedy)” is a haunting, impactful success from County Dublin, Ireland-based artist Garrett Anthony Rice, exploring a young boy’s deadly fate at the Poulaphouca Reservoir. This engaging single, taken from the upcoming double album Equinox, weaves a narrative of loss and folklore with artful entrancement.
The track moves with introspective warmness throughout. Commencing the production, a comforting mixture of gentle acoustic strums and sporadic electric adornments combines with a glistening, windchime-like backing. “In the darkness of the lake, I know a soul that I can take, I see someone close, they will have to do,” Rice’s vocals let out, conveying the perspective of a body of water and its natural force, not to be reckoned with — in this case, the lyrics referencing a young boy’s tragic fate at the Poulaphouca Reservoir in County Wicklow, Ireland.
The ominous point-of-view of that lake transforms into haunting guitar twangs as Rice’s vocals momentarily fade, then re-emerging into the “flow, flow, flow / they do not know how to reach the shore anymore.” The theme, reflecting on innocence snuffed out too quickly by certain forces, reminds of The Smiths’ “Suffer Little Children.” The track shifts into an especially riveting sequence in the final couple minutes, where ghostly guitar tones and acknowledgements of grieving parents moving into a lushly absorbing, concluding resonance. “In The Darkness With The Spirit Of The Lake (a family tragedy)” is a chilling success of a track from Garrett Anthony Rice.
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This and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
