Sylar

Sylar begins with a softened guitar before landing with the layered guitars we have become accustomed to. For me, this is the most enigmatic of songs, yet I must persist with some explanation. The theme of finding respite outside of oneself continues here. For instance, In Another Life waits for someone to come and take her. Here she looks to the Sylar, outside of herself to fix her. However, in turn, she becomes the Sylar, the God outside of herself to find her remedy, to “defy rotation, defy.” Musically, this one is straightforward and produced with perfection.

A Demon Has Escaped the Triangle

This is a short instrumental designed to set the mood. It exists on synth sounds and a drum beat that hits hard and fades away perhaps giving way and providing an intro to the most dynamic song on the record.

Black Mountain

Black Mountain is the longest track on the album clocking in at 7:56. It is also the most ambitious musically and a beautiful album closer. It opens with synth and Marianna’s beautiful vocals floating ethereally above the ambience. The drums kick in while Marianna chants in the background with the next verse vocals overlaying those. The chant begs for help, for patience, questions, desperately looking for answers. The overlaying vocals bolster this as she sings about being underserving, and screaming for harmony. As the song continues, there is no escape for our singer. She is caught in a deathly embrace and this leads to a resounding crescendo that closes the album with a punch. Employing the technique from earlier in the song, Marianna chants like a choir:

“(Broken down into submission

At the dawn of your perdition

You have wasted life for a goodbye

Nothing else after this ending

Just the mountain’s doom impending

This is where we die)”

Over the top of this, she pleads, “I don’t want to die!” Black Mountain is such a fitting ending to a record that begs for answers and wants to escape its own skin.

Order of the Minus is a journey. It’s at one point an aggressive call to arms. At another, questioning of purpose and place in all of this. In all, it moves seamlessly through emotions and is structured in a way that even new listeners will feel the weight of the emotions. As a first full length album, Project Renegade has hit it out of the park. Order is ambitious, cleverly written and arranged, professional in ways beyond typical first records.

Grade: A

On June 15, look for Project Renegade on the Wanderings and Woolgathering podcast- you can find past and future episodes here: linktr.ee/Wanderingsandwoolgathering

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