The first sound you hear on Kilbey Kennedy's fifth proper studio album, 2017's empyrean Glow and Fade, is a hollow, amorphous sigh, a space wind filtered through what sounds like a digital phone with a woman's voice buried deep beneath. Soon, the dry white noise is joined by more organic sounds: the fluorescent sparkle of a moon-like synth and the curious, glowing inquiries of a small alien guitar cooing and laser-writing its way through the dark atmosphere. Emerging from this cosmogonic reverie, a realization: "I used to think that darkness was a metaphor, with you beside me as I breathe." It's a haunting way to start an album and one that completely envelopes you, drawing you deep into its cosmic womb. Collaborators since 2009, the Church lead singer/songwriter Steve Kilbey and All India Radio instrumentalist Martin Kennedy have a wondrously low-key, high-reward musical partnership. Together, they maximize everything you love about their individual projects. For Kilbey, it offers a chance to stretch out into further spectral areas than with the Church; for Kennedy, who is primarily known for his instrumental chillwave electronica, it means he has a charismatic singer who can lend further pathos and gravitas, not to mention pop lyricism, to his already evocative soundscapes. All of this is brought to bear on Glow and Fade, the duo's most potently realized work to date.
While technically not a concept album, Glow and Fade is imbued with enough celestial-cum-spiritual themes to earn the term. With its cover art, a painting by lauded Dune artist Bruce Pennington portraying a Saturnian planet ringed by floating skulls, and the duo's knack for crafting textured, electronic-tinged space rock, Glow and Fade brings to mind a bevy of musical and cinematic touchstones. The leadoff title track alone evokes both the '70s gatefold aesthetic of Pink Floyd and director Andrei Tarkovsky's obsessively eerie 1972 sci-fi masterpiece, Solaris. The rest of the album plays out similarly, with Kilbey singing in his trademark warm croon, playing a kind of philosopher astronaut awakened from a hypersleep-induced dream to the stark surreality of space and all of the universe's truths held like planets before him. Is he actually traveling through a distant solar system, or is he still asleep and dreaming? Is he alive, eking out his remaining days alone on a spacecraft with his memories, or is he already dead, his soul now space dust tossed to the solar winds? These are the thoughts that cross your mind when listening to Glow and Fade.
Musically, it's also a deftly arranged production that finds the two weaving in bubbly keyboard electronics and classical acoustic guitars alongside David Gilmour-esque electric guitar swells and drums that mutate from jazzy ride and snare patterns to driving, orgasmic Giorgio Moroder club beats. And while the overall vibe is half-lidded and psychedelic, cuts like the languid, delicately orchestral ballad "They Know" and the romantic, Saint Etienne-sounding duet between Kilbey and vocalist Selena Cross on "We Are Still Waiting" are indelible, tactile songs full of melody and poignant lyrics. Ultimately, Kilbey Kennedy grab both your heart and your imagination on Glow and Fade, turning you toward the event horizon and holding you in their pop gravitational pull.