Writing back in 2018 of album Comb for Gold, we described how the music of Desert Liminal possesses “a sense of intuition,” where the arrangement and vocals coalesce into an “organic cadence linked as though the words of some spell or incantation.” The Chicago-based outfit position themselves somewhere between pop and something more experimental, the vocal melodies of lead Sarah Jane Quillin populating worlds of looped synths, pedal effects and Rob Logan’s drums—worlds often ethereal and drifting, though prone to tumultuous crescendos too. “Led by [Quillin’s] poetic songwriting,” we concluded, “this is music both nebulous and striking, like dreams that stick with you long after waking.”
This summer sees the release of Glass Fate, a brand new Desert Liminal full-length out via Whited Sepulchre Records. With the addition of violinist and noise artist Mallory Linehan, the album sees the band expand their sound. The dreamy aesthetic is further developed with Linehan’s strings, serving to not only open up new territory to explore, but also hone these lines of experimentation to give everything a tight and polished feel. The result is a newly confident Desert Liminal, a band settling into a higher form.
Take lead single, ‘New Tongue’. The hallmarks of the previous releases are present, the sense of otherworldly texture fully retained, but both Logan’s drums and Quinlan’s delivery have a newfound momentum tempered by a steely cool. The seemingly languid, detached opening proves disarming as the strings intervene and the track gathers within itself, the sound almost like a band evolving in real time. The sense of maturing into something harder and firmer without sacrificing the poetic air.
I don’t need no southbound highway sign
To tell me HELL IS REAL
It’s where I got my shiners
Harsh time, wise mother of my deep purple under eye
No I don’t have to drive
I earned mine, palm fronds of the combine
