Musician: Lindsay Schoolcraft
Album Title: Worlds Away
Genre/ Subgenre: Goth, Classical, Ethereal
Label: Cyber Proxy Records
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Last year, Lindsay Schoolcraft, who among her many past gigs included being the keyboardist for Cradle of Filth, made her solo debut with the awesome Martyrs. This year, with COVID-19 resulting in quarantine, Schoolcraft worked on Worlds Away giving us a powerful album and beautifully haunting record. Returning to work with her is former and the first Evanescence drummer Rocky Gray (who also co-wrote Martyrs with her), as he adds some electronic beats on a couple of songs.
The result is one of the most emotionally captivating records of the year, one that also happens to get better with each and every listening. In these difficult times, I have found peace and beauty in it. There is this welcoming embrace to it, that invites the listener and heals the soul. I connected to it on an spiritual level that is hard to achieve or even truly explain. This is the perfect record to relax to, as it calms the inner and deepest part of one.
Most of the songs presented here are reworkings of her earlier tracks. Only two (the title track and "Dance On The Strings") are new. Regardless all of the songs are ethereally haunting works of music. That aforementioned title has a gorgeous and stunning string intro to it. It is complimented by Schoolcraft's beautiful and soothing voice. "Saviour", one of my absolute favorite off of Martyrs, is given a new life here. The intro to this one is haunting and, yet, with her gorgeous vocals there this new tragic and pained feel to it. It makes the song that much more powerful and effective. "Fading Star" is another stunner of a track. Her voice sounds amazing and works so wonderfully against here string work giving it an otherworldly and sorrowful feel. I would call it my favorite but, the truth is each listening gives me a new song that I connect more and more to.
Lindsay Schoolcraft's Worlds Apart is one of the year's most beautiful, stunning, and powerful surprises. It touched the inner me in a way I wasn't expecting. In these trying times, it is an album that will soothe and calm the heart and the soul. Mixing elements of Evanescence, Within Temptation, and Sarah Brightman, it provides the perfect answer to those of who have a taste for the beautiful, tragic, and gothic. With Schoolcraft's gorgeous vocals and string arrangements, I have a found a release that has hit me in away like nothing else in 2020. And, without a doubt it cements her as one of the artists whose new work I will most anxiously await.
4.5 out of 5
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