Phosphorescent – Revelator Review

We demand revelation wherever we go. Clarity is a tool like no other; for Phosphorescent, it is a weapon. Their latest work on Revelator is a powerful beast. A collection of doomed and damned ideas circling in a tense yet intimate and alluring sound. Matthew Houck returns six years after his previous Phosphorescent album with a warmth like no other. His opening, title track has him move away from the harsh but fulfilling world of living on the edge. Survival is not for the fittest. Instead, Houck insists the real route to a fulfilling life is to give up the chase and fear. He is right. Revelator goes to great lengths in exploring this feeling, and with it comes a wonderful momentum. Phosphorescent here is about feeling the Americana influence, trying to rekindle your enjoyment in a flatlining world.  

Much of Revelator is an attempt at finding a place to belong. We all do. But the joy of finding somewhere to lay down and rest for a while comes from exploring your options. Phosphorescent comes across as well-travelled and the lived-in experiences which mark the subtle string use and contrasting joy of The World is Ending marks one of many powerful moments in Houck’s hands. There is a numbness in the warmth provided here – sincere and intentional. Revelator is all about unique and intimate experiences yet being unable to shake the coldness in moments which will define us and circle our minds for the rest of our lives. Home Alone references find the contemporary flourish, the ever-needed comparisons we make to lasting cultural pillars.  

The likes of Wide as Heaven find the root cause of our grief. We are not fearful of death but of the lack of experiences to come after – what shall we do to fill the time? If there is somewhere up above for after the land of the living, then surely, we cannot bring our Tassimo machines and our paperback collection of Hunter S. Thompson prose? Why bother, then? Revelator has the chance to massage the aches and pains of doubt, doing just that over a tremendously warm experience. A Moon Behind the Clouds sounds like a Crowded House riff, the strings collected, forming a warm backdrop to those who can see beyond the living realm. Houck appears obsessed with this line of commentary; the afterlife has such a crucial impact on the flow of this record, and it forms its most tender moments.  

Because that is the aim of Phosphorescent here. A lush and open experience which toys with the big ideas all of us are plagued by. March to the drum of All the Same, for the truth heard on that track is as eye-opening as it is understated. We are rats to the piper of life and Revelator is looking at this, having already understood and identified the thrills and spills. Kill your fear with the ideas present on A Poem on The Men’s Room Wall, lifted from all those dives and pubs where scrawling on the stall door is a rite of passage. Those Americana twangs make for a soft landing into the depths of an articulate and always- wondering artist. Revelator is an open book, an honest assessment of those ideas which keep you up at night. Engage them, accept them and make the most of it with the few albums and artists who understand the struggle and joy.