I’m waiting for a record to arrive before I start my next series, so in the meantime I’m going to hit a couple one-offs that fall under the general category of “impulse buys” – those albums that, whether drunk or excited or something else caused me to hit the buy button before really thinking. Sometimes it pays off, as is the case with Air Not Meant For Us, the second album from Connecticut’s Fires in the Distance. Taking cues from melodic, progressive death metal and injecting a healthy dose of gloom and doom make for a dynamic and exciting album, one that crept back into my ears on a playlist as I was drifting off the sleep, forcing me to take attention and buy a copy before the inevitable slide back into the black.

To be clear: the fact that the album works as a soothing sleep tool is a compliment. My first thought as I gave more of my attention to Air Not Meant For Us and the opening track “Harbingers” was this was giving off some serious Daylight Dies and Novembers Doom vibes, particularly around the time of Dismantling Devotion and The Novella Reservoir. The track has gorgeous piano and strings accentuating the melodic death metal elements, all of which chug ahead at a moderate tempo so you can feel each idea blossom and fade away. It’s followed by “Wisdom of the Falling Leaves” which gets a little more brutal despite opening with a sparkling piano passage. I can’t tell who’s playing keys – the liner notes credit Yegor Savonin as “guitar, programming, composition” so maybe it’s him. What I can tell is this is a very, very produced album – the songwriting and arrangements veer into the classical, and are fused nicely with the metallic elements. Themes soar on the guitars, and there’s a real emphasis on melody throughout, almost to the point where I’d hesitate to put the “death metal” label on it; excepting for the harsh vocals which are so clearly enunciated the tag seems almost silly. The side ends with “Crumbling Pillars of a Tranquil Mind” and I feel it just on the title alone – I’d be lying if I said my mental and emotional states were fine at the moment, and more and more I find that dark, heavy music helps re-align me: maybe there’s something to having a mirror (sonic in this case) reflect back at you those fears and anxieties so you can not internalize them so much? Anyway, I really enjoy how the guitar solos work within the song, and the space given to the riffs provides this openness for the somber sections to really stand out.

As we head into the three songs that comprise Side B I realize that many of my “sounds like” references for Air Not Meant For Use are from almost 20 years ago. A quick perusal of other reviews point out references like Be’Lakor, Insomnium and Swallow the Sun, so if those work for you, great. “Adrift, Beneath the Listless Waves” is a strong contender for best song; the introduction is fierce with some great chugging energy. Even without lyrics you can get a sense of the melancholy and despair, and the exquisite beauty underneath – easy to now understand why the band released an instrumental version of the entire album. Next is “Psalm of the Merciless” and it continues the trend Fires in the Distance have set forth – crushing heaviness offset by somber orchestral flourishes and impending doom.

I think that’s the overwhelming impression both Fires in the Distance and Air Not Meant For Us leaves: dark beauty in the recesses of sadness, a note of light in the black, and a feeling of not being alone even as you shudder to think that whatever it is you’re going through is insurmountable. As the final moments of closing track “Idiopathic Despair” tick away I wonder if I’m putting too much of myself into the music as I hear it.

Honestly, right now I don’t know any other way to consume it.