Instrumental music is not just music that lacks lyrical content; it does away with lyrics altogether, instead creating a language and voice through its tones and textures that fulfil the same role. In fact, in the right hands, a far more superior role, as there is a nuance and expression to be found in music that goes beyond the restraints of mere language. And Ben Eastman, as he has already proven many times, is in the right hands.
Right from the off, the opening track, Nightstalker, sets the tone, one describing the emptiness of the night, although given the title, perhaps not so empty, of lurking menace and through the strutting rhythms, the idea of an unseen, relentless and remorseless entity coming your way. Dark rock grooves shot through with bluesy riffs and cascades of electronic energy leave us in no doubt of the shaded and shadowed sonic world he has built here.
And from there, we wander between eighties-infused, brooding underground sonics of songs like Heat Rising, the scintillating and fragile shards that are woven into The Return, the more confident meanderings of Streets of Fire and finally, the sax and violence hinted at with Dusk Till Dawn. This last one a song that could have cropped up on the Vangelis soundtrack to Blade Runner.
As with Heat Rising, there is a sort of 80’s blend of poise and polish and anthemics and atmosphere found throughout the album, but that is just a stylish sheen rather than a wholesale borrow and the album, as always with Ben’s work, sounds perfect for today and also feels like it is leading a charge into a bright future for instrumental music.
After all, who needs to be told what the music is about when you can feel it in your heart, perhaps your soul?