Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Some people are not just born to light the way for others to follow, they radiate a storm that is so undeniably beautiful that the trail blazed is one that a waiting time of eternity to catch a glimpse in its raw and unfiltered is only matched by that of the expectancy when confronted by the Aurora Borealis for the first time.
It is in the explosion of Immanent Fire that Emily Jane White surfaces, and whilst the writing has been two years in the making and the subject of destruction and obliteration runs deep in this her sixth album. What becomes clear is a truth that there are those amongst us who have the feeling of indomitable woven through their D.N.A., and even in the midst of unpalatable reality or the sentence riven with fire and brimstone, can still guide someone towards the light that shines with awe and auspiciousness.
The Immanent Fire is one that grieves for the sacred, a mark of remembrance for the fallen planet to which we have caused unnecessary suffering but with the voice of the phantom eternal, of the elemental angel singing one last song before the curtains close and the war on the feminine is exploited to a level where the bright lights start to fail and the natural world is replaced by a husk.
We need the light, the bright star and the Immanent Fire to remind us that destruction, the masculine trait of unforgiveness, is not an option anymore, and songs such as Drowned, Washed Away, Metamorphosis, the haunting Shroud and The Gates At The End ask only that we should rebel, revolutionise the way we see the inevitable we have caused and that, with a different power in the sky to enthral us. The fire will be one that consumes the stark and insane drive to murder our world, it will be replaced with the fire in our soul to preserve and nurture.
Emily Jane Whittle was in the unenviable position to write the album and it is in that first hand witness that she speaks of, as the album was recorded in a California that burns amid discussion, denial and lies, that we should place our trust in the music written by the observer. A light that explodes from within is always worth following.
A sensational, sensual album, one of grief, one of anger, one that could lead to a new way of thinking, one that rivals that first time when the Northern Lights call to you in the way your ancestors once did.
Emily Jane White’s Immanent Fire is out now.
Ian D. Hall