PREMIERE | The Natvral, "Lucifer's Glory"
Between the expanses of heaven, earth & the heck below — Kip Berman of The Natvral; press photo courtesy of the artist.
Awakening to our world as a rehabilitating work in progress, we continue to reckon with the calamities that the 2020s have wrought (so far). For a moment in time in recent years, it felt as if a certain light had been extinguished. The feeling that reverberated across the entire universe was a notion that the entire globe ceased to spin, an extraordinary event that felt like an inexplicable descent into a period of night without end. Any daylight to speak of was all but ignored as we remained confined to the safe spaces of our humble homes with only establishments that were dubbed essential remained accessible. It was a time of separations and shelter-in-place quarantine where our small world became even smaller while anxiety and fear became omnipresent, peddled through every social media channel that made our collective situations feel borderline hopeless.
Created during this aforementioned tumultuous period, former Pains of Being Pure at Heart bandleader Kip Berman announces the latest solo album Summer of No Light via The Natvral moniker. Sharing the debut of “Lucifer’s Glory”, Berman delivers tales of heroes and villains inspired during the stir-crazy days of being sequestered to the safety and sanctuary of home. Attending to family duties amid an apocalyptic backdrop of a pandemic and the feeling of a world that had entirely collapsed; The Natvral brings it all back to the basics by way of tunesmith testimonials like the ballads, novels, and sonnets bequeathed by old world troubadours.
With breadcrumbs that recall the thunder roads of Springsteen and Dylan-esque proverbs, parables and paeans — “Lucifer’s Glory” delivers tales of good and evil amid the backdrops of heaven, hell and the earth as we once knew it (and know it only all too well). Kip imagines angels and demons spilling out into the empty streets of a universe that is otherwise on lockdown, imagining ideological showdowns in an ensemble of charlatans, false messiahs, snake oil sales folk and other Mephistophelian items of interest. Its a world where the winners are the dubious losers and the would be losers are the real winners in the story that have yet to fully sell themselves for the false valor of petty idleness and infatuated idolatry. Berman imagines the decline of the natural, material order where the mythologies of the immaterial dimensions duke it out in the cold concrete of an evacuated and abandoned Main Street inhabited only by lost, wayward spiritual entities (and other vestiges of plant and animal wildlife). The Natvral steps on top of the soapbox to give a big tent stage anthem about an alternate timeline where devils and archangels battle it out for dominance in a universe where Beelzebub and associated minions hold all the universe’s real estate titles and deeds.
Kip Berman shared the following reflections on the new single “Lucifer’s Glory”:
Don’t let the title fool you— It’s not a full throated “Hail Satan,” but it is full throated. I suppose I could’ve called it “Paradise Lust”. When you hit rock bottom, but wish you could fall deeper — when you’re proud to lose, ‘cuz you know the kind of people who win — when only what’s missing remains…Sure, It’s perverse, crushing, and wrong. But it’s also alright. There were other options, but only one choice. That’s “Lucifer’s Glory”.
Berman also provided some musings on the new album Summer of No Light:
These songs live somewhere between the climate crisis of 1816, the climate crisis of now, and the climate crisis of the heart. You might say it’s a gothic record—but the house isn’t haunted. The ghosts moved out years ago, but I still get their mail from time to time. After putting my children to bed, I spent many a late night in the basement with my guitar and let my mind wander to the places where I could no longer go. Initially, a lot of the songs were about getting as far away from the reality of my moment as possible.
The record’s title, Summer of No Light, is taken from the climate crisis of 1816. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was written that same summer, like me, she was among the relatively fortunate who could take shelter. I found the idea of these people sustaining themselves through art, while fucking and getting fucked up, both familiar and foreign. Maybe I was embarking on a few ghost stories myself, indulging in a kind of gothic fantasy of tragic loves and lost friends while a more banal specter loomed on milk cartons, suburban playground equipment, and the very breath of conversation.
Don’t feel bad for me, my wife pulled long days working from home — and still found time to be present for all of us. The routines of domesticity were often unwelcome, and always exhausting — but probably mentally helpful. I was isolated, but not alone.
The Natvral’s second album Summer of No Light will be available September 1 on Dirty Bingo.