The day I got this album in my inbox is the day I noticed the first signs of fall. Erratic splashes of yellow on trees, a shy sun’s blushing intensity gleaming through the purple morning skies at increasingly later times, pumpkin patches usurping the arid fields around my city, and a nibbling chill in the air. Finally, my benched hoodies get some game time. Before I even played The Impermanent Amber for the first time, I could hear the delicate frolicking on “The Crisp” in my head, or the soaring golden bright autumn day that “Skyisland” captures so well. Look, I even took a picture.
It was like some sort of pre-emptive vibe check, but I still wasn’t ready for what was on this album. I’ve been a Secret Gardens fan for a few years, somehow coming across their Tundra project in 2021, its cold winter embrace paradoxically warming during a time when we all needed some love and care. I became enamored with it, eventually doing a review for the project that, after re-reading it just now, I would totally rewrite if I could today. Growth in all senses of the word made the band’s next project, everbloom, truly immersive, so expertly capturing the moods and tones of spring with eye-watering motion and devotion to theme – I still return to it often, even off-season because I’m built different.
What’s also built different is this new album, The Impermanent Amber. Completing the four seasonal projects with summer-themed debut project Verão being the first one, this one is expansive, a giant’s leap in terms of musicality and scope that I could never even anticipate. When it was clear that vocals from band mastermind Greg Almeida would be present on the album, I initially thought maybe a song or two, similar to how they’ve shaped previous LPs with guest vocals. No, eight of the eleven tracks on here have vocals, the lion’s share belonging to Almeida themself. This isn’t even the biggest surprise either so it’s smart that he eased us into this new era with the lead single, “Rumination”.
Goddamn, his voice is amazing. I’m not surprised, and yet I am – it very much fits the delicate timbre that Secret Gardens songs have cultivated over the years. Everything about this song (and the video!) feels comfortable, even as it utilizes a tricky rhythm to build a nice foundational groove. It feels like a Secret Gardens song, a perfect single before the pump fake that is much of the rest of the album. The first instrumental track of the album is “Skyisland”, a sonic continuation from everbloom‘s “Skydeck”. Both songs are melodic monsters with big-time playfulness at the souls of each. I absolutely love the twinkling piano in “Skyisland” though – it gives it such a deft emotionality that I love hearing from this band, further lifted up by the acoustics midway through and the powerful guitar chugs that take over in true prog metal fashion. Already, this album is a multifaceted, gold-lined dream.
Most of the surprises lie elsewhere though. “I Let Myself Die” is a somber opener that really highlights the hell out of Almeida’s vocals and sets the thematic tone for The Impermanent Amber. It has an ever so slight country folk tonality to it, stripped down heavily for the instrumentation. It’s unlike anything I’ve heard from Secret Gardens before, as is “MT”, a full-blown duet with Viana Valentine, Almeida’s pal that he shouted out at the end of our Weekly Featured Artist article. They both make this song with pristine vocal melodies and a wonderful spaciousness to the instrumentation for their ode to the beauty of Montana. The lyrics are absolutely poetic and heartfelt reminders to live in the moment and disconnect from the bustle of urban life while remembering the temporariness of it all:
‘I saw that last sunrise and cried
(Can’t believe it’s really over)
Ghosted town and a hesitant drive
(Snow capped and cloudy amber)
‘Cause it’ll never be the same again
But there’s a beauty to impermanence
A love-hate relationship with time
I could never stop September’
This is one of the best songs I’ve heard all year, perfectly emulating the feel of autumnal wilt and its fleeting, affecting spectacle.
Still, Greg has a nuclear level of change to metamorphize through in real-time and it’s great stuff. Secret Gardens even flirts with pop punk and emo elements. “Persimmon” gets an assist from Transit‘s Ella Meadows. It’s more grounded than “MT”, but pretty and clean all the same with Meadows’ voice being extraordinarily complementary to Almeida’s. One of the simpler tracks on The Impermanent Amber, it still excels with its writing and more easygoing mood to make for one of the band’s most approachable tracks yet. “Pleasant Valley/Milner Field” has Cory Wells on it which is straight upbeat emo worship expertly done. It’s so real, a type of candid vulnerability that this genre does so well, as do Almeida and Wells when singing, beautifully, about moving on and taking control of one’s own life while still holding the past in kind reverence. The gang vocals in the middle are sumptuous and Wells’ screams after those are impassioned pleas to retain a loving relationship no matter how far they drift apart:
‘I always knew this day would come
And all good things must go
I always lived in someone else’s house, but I had never chose a home
So don’t think I’m not grateful, ’cause it’s a rare type of love
A bond that’s never broken, just forced to shift and grow‘
And if you want more of that edginess, “The Coven” should be your next stop. Fellow Weekly Featured Artist alum Greybloom star in what is easily Secret Gardens‘ heaviest song ever put to tape. Both have collabed before on a track called “Moonglade” where Almeida sang as well and although it has a post-hardcore soul, it was ultimately a hazier, stirring track with that Secret Gardens melodic flair acting as accoutrement. Not “The Coven” though – this is a dark track, only to be played under full Samhain moon, your face lit only by fire, stems and branches from dead trees embedded in your knees as you chant and evoke a power you don’t comprehend in a blackened forest night. It has a warbling unease to it, a banshee’s moan permeating the track, and the tones seemingly claw at you between the cleanly sung verses and bass groove that can’t be missed. Major Yellowjackets vibes. It’s the best track I’ve heard from Greybloom personally and the collaborative flow between both bands feels next level here – there’s even a breakdown here!
All over this album, Secret Gardens are transcendental with not a single step out of place or unearned. It’s like The Impermanent Amber brought fall to me, incrementally painting the trees in my path as I walked by them every day I had this album playing in my headphones. Every song feels like love, an intimate encounter with nature, growing up with (and sometimes in spite of) yourself, learning and feeling with those around you. It’s about dying and being reborn each and every year, shedding your old skin, mindset, and habits to make room for new ones, to appreciate the people worth keeping around and leaving the ones who aren’t behind to their own journeys. As my photos coincidentally captured, it’s all a one-way trip too – you can bring things back into your life as you wish, but you can’t undo things done. Even as the final notes play on “a tragic tale of stars”, the only straightforward-ish post-rock banger on here, it’s not so much an end, but preparation for another loop of the cycle, to be ran anew, to show you more details than you saw before, and mold itself to a livable experience because that’s ultimately what this album and Secret Gardens as a whole represents: the life that you live, however you want to color it in throughout the year.
I don’t feel a shred of critique, insincerity, or missed opportunity within this album. I feel bad for Greg because as it now stands, this is by far the new standard by which future Secret Gardens projects will be weighed against. I’m so glad he found his voice to place within this greater story as it did nothing but push the band’s boundaries much further than any cool guitar lead or new instrumental technique ever could. There’s not a single song on here that didn’t make me immensely feel, often to the point of weeping. I haven’t heard an album with this much heart and care in a long time. For now, I’ll watch my leaves fall, exposing the foundational bones that make me who I am, and hope they grow back better, wiser, and more vibrant than before. Goodbye, for now…
Artist photo by Holly Turner, hastily taken and badly framed tree photos captured from September 23 to October 21 by your boy
