When artists drop Christmas music, we are usually right to expect syrupy renditions of old favourites or hastily crafted ‘new’ music, which again often falls short of artistic merit that we expect from said artists. Mear, who has been dropping some seriously good music this year, has come out of the shadows to hit us with an unexpected and thunderous rally to take the fractured and emotional time head-on.
The opening song of Day of Light, “For Meryl”, is the beautiful voice of Frances Miller filling what sounds like the empty hall of a church, and what could be a re-hash of a well-tread idea sounds fresh and gorgeous. The lyrics speak of the painful journey we all have embarked on in the past year, and the reality of the suffering is upfront and center. The second verse brings forth the feelings of loss and regret we have all seen in the passing of those we could not even visit in their final hours:
“Oh, the strength that our bodies give,
Rely upon each other’s hearts,
We grieve the ones who do not stay,
With sorrow when it takes away”
The song brings the sadness and even horror of these times, while also letting the light in, through Cohen’s so often referenced cracks in everything. The chorus tells us to breathe, breathe, breathe as a stark reminder of the very need that illudes us in our final moments.
The second track, “The Gathering,” hits you square in the face with the thundering Celtic drums struck to the rhythms of what at first could be old Ireland, but emerge to be the beats of a future we are unsure off. As the track unfolds, we feel the strings and electro beats of what lies ahead, and a dark sky approaches from behind the electronic soundscape.
“Dusk into Dawn,” the third track, follows this direction, reaching ever further into what I can describe as Irish Apocalypse. If ever there was a soundtrack to novelist Kevin Barry’s dark version of an Irish future, City of Bohane, it is these two tracks. They are glorious and alive and make you dance, tapping bruised toes in the black ash left behind by the fire that burned the world.
The wide variation of instruments brought onto the stage here, from a Hurdy Gurdy to the haunting cello, come together in a wall of sound that moves through and around you. Greg Harrison’s fingerprints are all over the sound, his orchestral and sonic capabilities going from large down to the very small, becoming almost the music of a knife fight in an alleyway, brought to glimmering light.
The fourth and final track, “The Light,” brings back the quiet, the calm that comes with recognizing your surroundings as alien as they may be, as ours. The return of quiet and the glow of an evening fire is ever-present, and the rich voice of Frances Miller reminds us that we have survived. We may be scarred and not even recognize the world we have emerged into, but we are together and mostly intact. And it is that survival, that very idea of making it through the dark, that lies at the very core of what makes this about Christmas. Be it a forgotten manger lit by a star, or a cooling fire marked by fading embers as the night rages on, these tracks can be the bright lullabies that lead us into the morning of our survival, both metaphorical and literal. It is Christmas, and we shall gather our love around us and sing on through the night.