Come along, for the ride...

Neverending White Lights, if you hung out with me in the year 2006, there's a good chance that I said Neverending White Lights at least once every 4 hours you were around. Even while you were sleeping, I whispered it in your ear.

Neverending White Lights (from here on out NWL) is a band/project fronted by Daniel Victor and features several artists, all in one album. It combines a tranquil and resonant sound with Daniel Victor performing all musical instruments and having a specific singer for each song which he saw as ideal to each song.

Now I heard about this project because of Nick Hexums involvement. Since he is a difficult guest to corral, my instincts told me that this would be worth listening to. I don't know what I was expecting now, but it wasn't quite this.

The album Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies, joins, if not trumps the likes of Letters, Bringing Down the Horse, From Chaos, and many of the other albums I hold in such high personal regards. In fact, if you were to ask me today, I would tell you it is, without a single shade of doubt, that this album is unparalleled, and definitely the most satisfying that I have ever heard. This coming from someone who could listen to 300 albums over the course of a week or two, and it wouldn't be peculiar.

How does it pull this off? By NWL's revolving company of singers, some from more well known bands (311, Finger Eleven, Our Lady Peace), and some from bands even I haven't heard of (Supergarage, Ours, Sleepway). The involvement of this ample array of talent does a few things that no other album by a single artist has going for it.

For example, it is very easy to attempt to listen to an entire album, only to get bored by the same singer on every song. Or, perhaps the same repetitive chords, rhythms, whatever. This doesn't happen with NWL. Not only do you get a new and unique singer for each track, one that was hand-chosen to perform that one in particular, but there is a progression to the album. There are emotional ups, and downs. This isn't to say there are fast paced songs... just ones lighter in tone.

As a matter of fact the whole album, is light as a feather. At times, the music itself feels dark, but that's not darkness, it's uncertainty. Uncertain, but optimistic. It would have been very easy to take this down a depressing, somber, gloomy road musically, but Victor knowingly avoids this. If there is darkness to NWL, it comes from the listeners own mind.

Every strum of the guitar, snap of the drum, lick of bass, twinkle of the piano, was perfectly planned. Daniel's perfectionism shows in his music, and you can tell that his whole heart & his whole soul has been channeled through this music, because of that, one cannot be unmoved by it. As I listen to this album, even now, after every song, every other song, or sometimes even every minute or two... I just breathe a focused, calming breath outward, my mind eases a bit, and my love for this albums grows a bit more.

And that, is very hard to pull off. To not only entertain musically, but to affect one physically and mentally. For that I thank, applaud, and worship at the feet of Daniel Victor, and I cannot wait to hear where he goes next.

MP3: Age of Consent (featuring Nick Hexum of 311)
MP3: How Could I Survive (featuring Sharkey Laguana of Creeper Lagoon)
MP3: Angels & Saints (Single Version, featuring Chris Gordon of Deckard)

Buy this album at MapleMusic.com