Album Review: Eliza Gilkyson, ‘Dark Ages’
Through all of her music, Eliza Gilkyson, a poet of the human heart and soul, gazes deeply into the shadows of the human condition, searching for those rays of light that glimmer through the darkness. In the midst of our present dark ages, the shrouds of arrogance and ignorance have blanketed the world, wrapping it in fear and loathing rather than assurance and security. On her new album Dark Ages brilliantly evokes the struggles to find the glimpses of light in our current darkness.
Like a gentle breeze wafting through the trees or the sweet notes of bird’s song at dawn, the lilting waltz “Song to You” is a tender ode to songs that nature sings to us every day. The swelling strains of flugelhorn and pedal steel enfold listeners in the spacious symphony of the forest, the meadow, and the seasons. Plinking guitars fall like raindrops on “Impossible Dreams,” a reminder that we can live in the midst of especially difficult times like ours through s series of little acts: “Walk the rim trail/ Dig the storm clouds as they roll on past/ Let the dogs out/ Watch them run into the waving grass.” The minor chord hymn to the hope in the face of despair, “Holy,” exalts the resilience of the human spirit even as wars, devastating climate change, and political corruption contribute to “the numbing of the heart’s defenses.” The swaying, swampy rhythms of the title track stridently condemn all those sycophants and the “dirty old man with the dead snake eyes” who poison the air around us with “lies, lies, lies,” dispatching them back to the “dark ages.” Fiddle and mandolin lead the hoedown rhythms on the frolicking “Times Like These,” which counsels us to “learn to navigate the weather/ in times like these,” while “Stranger” evokes the exquisite mysteries of love as it deepens over the years. The upbeat “Dark Night of the Soul”—with its sonic echoes of a Carter Family tune—encourages joy and hope in the face of the dark times in which we find ourselves.
The songs on Dark Ages capture the frailty and the resilience of the human spirit, naming loudly the powers and principalities of darkness while embracing the courage, hope, and love that eventually overcomes any darkness.
###
Dark Ages is available HERE.
Resources
ElizaGilkyson.com
Music & Merch
Facebook
Instagram
BlueSky
YouTube
