Delivering everything it says on the titular tin through the sonorously enriching tones of every sonic spectre in the single, Catharsis demands your surrender, compels you to sink into the evocatively weighted production and allow the progressions to abstract the weight from your soul. With divinity oozing from the piano keys into the ethereal grace of her vocal lines, AILEN doesn’t just compose—she conjures.
Drawing influence from Pink Floyd, Queen, and Steven Wilson, the London-based alternative and progressive rock artist has made her mark alchemising hybrids of 70s prog, symphonic rock, and cinematic grandeur. Her thought-provoking lyricism and larger-than-life arrangements dissect existential loneliness, social corruption, and the fragile threads of human identity.
Catharsis is a consoling panorama in sound which artfully cuts above AILEN’s contemporaries. The prog rock inclinations wait until you’re off guard, finding the perfect time to cut a mournful electric guitar solo through the euphonic bliss of the single before a percussive build heightens the tension. AILEN’s vocals, which follow, are enough to bring you to the brink of tears, grounding the composition’s transcendence with raw, unwavering emotion.
Catharsis is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Bandcamp.
Review by Amelia Vandergast