Puma Blue - Holy Waters

If Puma Blue’s previous album was the milky twilight hours, ‘Holy Waters’ is the mist-laden break of dawn. With the laidback, pensive beats of opening track ‘Falling Down’, the album slowly eases into life – the track acts as a sonic rubbing of the eyes, a stretch of the arms before that brooding mounts to something larger. The loved-up, hazy ‘Pretty’ gives way to the tragedy-revelling ‘O, The Blood!’, both large in emotion but favouring a more ambient, languid soundscape. ‘Hounds’, then, growls into being in this spacious and stretching world. The shuffling beats and taunting guitar line introduce a punishing intensity, with vocals swirling in anguish towards a tornado-like brass section. Grappling with grief, life, death and love, there are no shortage of thought-provoking, darker moments. And yet, with his ability to create these gorgeously romantic, reclusive aural worlds, Puma Blue manages to find light in those heavier subjects – ‘Holy Waters’ clings to hope at every corner, lingering in the isolated, haunted vocals and the quiet instrumentals. Final track ‘Light Is Gone’ gently strums into being, the final stage of awakening. The fog has lifted, and there’s a newfound clarity and peace within the softly strummed track. ‘Holy Waters’ reels to a glorious, relief-filled end, just as the light breaks.