The holidays have a weird way of shifting your plans around. Originally, I had a favorite electronic record of mine lined up for the next review after the double review I just did. I was gonna dispel the rumors that I made up (and no one else was thinking) that I dislike electronic music. I would’ve told all of those imagined haters off and then I would’ve gone off to build more strawmen to argue with. Alas, I have bigger tofu to fry. Today ARDENTLY’s second best writer will be covering The Earth! The Heavens! The Sapient Stars! by Big Heck.

It’s a little uncommon to get an album of this length that isn’t a sub-genre of hardcore punk – it’s 23 minutes and some change. It turns out the length of the record was not a short-sided mistake or from a lack of ability to make something longer, but rather because Big Heck knew exactly what they were doing. If anything, the length of The Earth! The Heavens! The Sapient Stars! serves as a proof of concept for what the band is capable of in terms of songwriting ability and creating a unique sound for themselves more than the full potential of their artistic impetus.

The album starts with the title track – a very dramatic opener with explosive bouts of chaotic noise, making it less of a song in the traditional sense, instead it’s more of a climatic spectacle with passing moments of relative silence dispersed in-between walls of distortion. Laced within the track’s more abrasive moments, we become increasingly more subject to the intricacies of Big Heck’s sound and influences. Saxophone becomes a prominent element, almost as much as the hushed, crooning vocals gently gliding throughout the track, even in the moments free of the cacophony that becomes ever-so-prevalent in the latter half. As it goes on, it starts to inherent a sort of psychedelic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band-type of quality. As the lead singer, Dil Harré, goes into their higher register, all the various layers of the track cascade over each other and the saxophone becomes ever more atonal and squawking.

“Secret Blue Trinket” is the song directly following the title track and by contrast, it’s a relatively calmer song. It does ramp up during the chorus with a very nice and subtle shift away from the verse. The guitars and drums begin to be in lockstep as they play with a gradually rising intensity that eloquently leads to the main musical motif with its fuzzy guitars that remind of me of some of the material on Loveless, and an airy synth melody just gently floating on top. All of this I love – I especially enjoy the last chorus being belted to the rooftops with the fuzzed out guitar and the extended outro with its various layers of distorted guitar, creating a very cathartic atmosphere for the song. I also find the lyrical angle very intriguing and relatable, as Dil comments on how they feel disconnected from people close to them who would seemingly rather look at their phone than spend quality time with them, despite their desperate attempts to get their attention. Unfortunately, interesting lyrics doesn’t stop the instrumental on the verses from feeling a little lackluster, as it feels like it could use a bit of the flair that was reserved for the rest of the song.

“Sorry the Theatre is Closed” is a spoken word piece which is extremely pivotal to the themes of the album. It’s in this track that we’re privy to Dil’s stream of consciousness as they rant about the societal and political issues of our day in vividly bleak prose. Their diatribe progressively gets more impassioned at the injustice of a world created by the one percent. It’s a deeply harrowing piece that stopped me in my tracks during a cursory listen, in a way that few songs do. However, it wasn’t until an enlightening email exchange with Dil that made me aware of the song’s larger thematic implication and how they connect to the lyrics regarding their relation with others.

The fourth song “Falling at the Speed of Paper” is a real stand-out track for me. Starting with this aquatic-sounding bass, the track quickly takes shape with these phenomenal hushed and autotuned high-pitched androgynous vocals. It reminds me a lot of this new wave of artists that exists in between the world of electronic music and hip-hop, like what Jane Remover and Lucy Bedroque have going on in their music, only much more restrained. I love the buzzing distorted synths on the verse. When we get to the chorus, there’s this light acoustic guitar strumming, these beautiful saxophone improvisations and this heart-rending, almost whispered chorus. Eventually, we get all of these layers of guitar, dreamy synth pads, drums, saxophone, and all of the other previous elements in the second verse that it starts to feel otherworldly and psychedelic. This song feels like stargazing on a mountaintop with your partner – like an overwhelmingly intimate moment with someone you deeply love. In a way, the lyrics of this track match the deeply personal and emotional energy, as Dil tries their best to comfort the people closest to them in a time where it’s so easy to become inundated with the cruelty of the times. It’s also here where Dil has to be there for the people that they felt ignored by in “Secret Blue Trinket”.

It’s after that narrative arc of the last three songs that the final few lyrics of the title track start to make sense.

“Somebody just escaped

I wish I could do the same

But all i have is

The earth, the heavens, the sapient stars”

The earth, the heavens and the sapient stars is supposed to be an outlet for something hopeful to cling onto – something so much greater than yourself to be a part of when it feels like everything around you is crumbling.

“does your mind think faster than you?” is another favorite of mine, despite its relative simplicity. In the verses, we get a typical, modern indie-rock style, laid-back electric guitar strumming, but all of the sudden, we get this sound that I could only describe as a bit-crushed sample of paper tearing or steam hissing. Whatever it is, it pairs super well with the drums and has an almost percussive element to it, reminds me of something I might hear off of Immunity by Jon Hopkins. We also get the saxophone almost acting as the bass with its warm and robust hum in the background of the song. The track really comes alive with the chorus, with distorted samples of chanting and the absolutely, spectacularly triumphant saxophone melody that just soars above everything else. If the last song feels like an intimate moment with someone special, this song feels like the scene in a coming of age romance film where the girl says yes. It feels so hopeful, full of life, and wonderfully youthful. It feels like a song where you have so much to look forward to, like the start of a new chapter in your life.

The final track, “Altar 444”, feels very grunge inspired, with the explosion of fuzzy, distorted guitars during the chorus with slightly whiny vocal affectation. I would call it a throw back if it wasn’t for the whispered vocals and much more restrained instrumental in the verses, as well as the sample of what sounds like some whirling machinery that pops up throughout the song. My favorite part of the song is the final repetition of the chorus over some acoustic strumming and the following extended outro that comes barreling through with the distortion again – it serves as a well-earned, cathartic and climatic finish to the album.

There’s something about this album that’s so special and exciting to me. Hearing this album is like looking at a beautiful gemstone that has yet to be cut; there’s a lot potential and what’s in front of me is already something fantastic, but it needs more refinement. In the short amount of time this album has to make an impression, Big Heck shows us they can write amazing and fantastically catchy songs with “does your mind think fast than you?”. They have developed their unique sound on “Falling at the Speed of Paper”. They have enough foresight to write about contemporary issues with “Sorry, The Theatre is Closed”, and they have have a wealth of fantastic influences to pull from on the rest of the album – now all that’s left is to distill all of their qualities into an album full of sonically cohesive, effortlessly catchy, and narratively inspiring songs, which I believe Big Heck has shown themselves to be capable of doing. Even if that doesn’t end up happening, I still love this album as a thrilling and alluring debut with a serious amount of relatable and potent emotional power, making for a truly human experience.

If you would like to listen to The Earth! The Heavens! The Sapient Stars! and support the band, all of their streaming, Bandcamp, and social media links are here.