Band – 7 Rainbows in Exile
Album – Twilight Gymnastics
Country of Origin – Serbia
Genre – Dark Wave/Gothic Rock
Release Date – November 12th, 2021
Label – Wave Records
Author – Serena
I’ll take you to the Wonderland
My pretty one
I’ll take you to the Wonderland
My pretty one
I’ll take you to the Wonderland
My pretty one
Drum machines galore! Feedback-sharpened twinkling strings! Saturnine melodies! The debut full-length from 7 Rainbows in Exile is an exercise in danceable misery. Though I’m a few months late to its release, I think it deserves a short blurb of a write up as it is right up my darkened alley of post-punk synthpop. Twilight Gymnastics is an 8 track “concept album composed primarily of my conversations with an entity called ‘Double-horned’. It is a character spiritually marked with two pairs of horns, the first pointed against the outside world while the second goes to its inner reality,” as the artist’s Bandcamp page reads.
I am a demon with the eyes of a boy
Master of the dearest deception you enjoy
If you were to take The Cure’s sad tune “A Strange Day” and stretch it out into a full-length album, but inject it with the dark danceability of Drab Majesty, then I feel as though you would get Twilight Gymnastics. Glaringly bleak lyrics, bass heavy backings, the incessant shatter of a thudding drum – it is very easy to shuffle your feet (assuming you’re wearing heavy combat boots) along to as you wipe the mascara heavy tears from your undereyes. Recorded during 2020, I believe we can all relate to lyrics such as, “I never wanted it to be this way. Never imagined that would feel this way.” The 7 Rainbows in Exile Bandcamp states, “…it comes natural that these circumstances had a significant impact on the album’s overall sound.”
With its sad, creeping wail of a bassline and metallic, whispery droning of a voice, “A Cold Cell,” perhaps my favorite off the album, could easily be a Fields of the Nephilim song. Then with tracks such as “Ode to Beauty,” I even get hints of Cocteau Twins. “Demon with the Boys Eyes,” a slightly more upbeat tune is such an enjoyable track that is light-hearted in its misery. The endless circling bassline of “Green Moon” is wonderfully addictive, and that warbled echo stemming from the guitar is very Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. Muffled watery sounds, a droning tone (Twin Peaks, anyone?), and stiffly spoken words take the album to its close.
Great is the power of love
And the distant expanses
How far can it reach
The eye of the heart
Overall, this is a delightfully gloomy album that can and should be revisited time and time again. Twilight Gymnastics is tracks full of moody poetry over cold, but fun synthy tones; an odd and abstract dream. What more could you ask for in this hellscape of a reality?
Rating: 4/5
