A couple of weeks ago I got a cryptic email with just a website URL www.whatitistobe.com from ‘a band you like’. 🤔 Talk to any of my Depth team members and they’ll tell you I can’t stand teasers for gig line-ups or music releases, and I’ll complain bitterly in the group chat about them. It’s a dangerous combination of being way too impatient as well as extremely curious that means I can’t handle it when I can’t work it out instantly!
That same curiosity had me check out the website, and it contained a short soundclip which was GORGEOUS. I had a sneaking suspicion that the velvety voice and smooth sounds may have come courtesy of The Comfort, and this was all but confirmed when Greyscale Records shared the same website link. Finally, the painfully curious can relax with official confirmation: The Comfort’s debut album What It Is To Be is on the way, releasing 9th November via Greyscale Records.
Along with the announcement, The Comfort released “Dissolve”, with a music video courtesy of Crystal Arrow Films. I’m not going to lie, my first consumption of this song was via the video and I spent a lot of my focus on trying to work out if the mesmerising dancers were naked or not (they’re not). It was later that day that I revisited the song and fell for it – hard.
I’ve always felt like there was something about The Comfort but I wasn’t sure what it was. With “Dissolve”, it feels like they are revealing more of that something than in previous releases; sharing poetic takes that sum up both the majesty and the frustration of a human existence. Given that The Comfort literally included poetry on their EP Love, it’s still very much The Comfort we know and love, but there’s more confidence here. More polish. More ‘here we are’.
The synth sparkled track takes us to a contemplative state of observation; watching ourselves from a distance and questioning the bigger picture that’s going on for us souls existing in human life. The combination of chiming notes and grounding bass crafts a really comforting scene along with this out-of-body questioning that really felt like a beautiful ‘home’ to me as a listener who also often asks herself these questions.
“Maybe we’re born to be endless
I’m drowning in colour in the darkness
What’s the point of my body
But to disrupt my permanence?”
“Dissolve” is lyrically poignant, and touches on purpose. In the words of Holding Absence it questions the greater ‘poetry behind all of this’; whether we’re undergoing lessons, or individually creating our reality. Most potent for me was the third verse which seemed to lean into frustration at being contained within human form, instead of allowed to be as ‘endless’ as we could be, and ‘dissolve into it all’. And even with that repeated chorus (“I want to dissolve into it all”), I feel like it’s been deliberately left open for interpretation as to whether dissolving is intended to mean fully embracing everything in our lives as they are, or existing as nothing but light.
I’m in love with both the meaning and the mystique of this song, and even more in love with how these beings of light are demonstrated in the music video. The visual shows an exploration of each other’s human forms, seeming like a condensed take on how The Comfort are expressing a limitless soul’s exploration of being encased within a mere mortal.
I sincerely hope that What It Is To Be is chock full of these poetic and inspired takes on life. Pre-orders are available here: http://smarturl.it/WhatItIsToBe
What It Is To Be Tracklisting:
1. Heavy Heart
2. Dissolve
3. Misery
4. Reach Out
5. Futures
6. Always Tired
7. Die Alone
8. Solus
9. Breathe
10. Sanctuary (La Búsqueda Del EspÃritu)
