Oh, holding on to yon and bitter falter
Endless yearning weaves its web
Among the forest, sheltered by her alter
To be free, to be free
Society of the Silver Cross draws on Gothic music’s old appetite for grand architecture, spiritual unease, and whatever might lie beyond ordinary daylight. Joe Reineke and Karyn Gold-Reineke built Temple of the Trees in Seattle, in part to accommodate that vision, filling the place with instruments that make a person wonder whether somebody has opened an archaeological dig beneath the control room.
Their ongoing Temple Hymns series turns that studio into a meeting ground. Each installment brings another musician into the room to write and record with the pair, allowing personality, instinct, and whatever strange chemistry develops over several concentrated days to determine the results. Volume One brought in T.J. Cowgill of King Dude. For Temple Hymns Volume Two, Blood and Sun founder Luke Tromiczak flew from New York to Seattle and spent a week working with Reineke and Gold-Reineke.
Tromiczak has led Blood and Sun since 2011, developing one of neofolk’s most recognizable baritones along the way. Put that voice beside twelve-string acoustic guitar, harmonium, B3 organ, Shahi Baaja, obscure synthesizers, and great booming toms and suddenly the room starts feeling considerably older than Seattle.
Unraveled moves at the pace of somebody following a mountain trail after sunset with complete confidence that something significant waits at the other end. Its language circles freedom, transformation, lunar power, broken mirrors, concealed paths, and the promise of reunion. The arrangement carries the stateliness of Leonard Cohen into territory closer to Rowland S. Howard, while those deep drums suggest Ennio Morricone scoring some outlaw procession whose participants have traded revolvers for incense.
The repetition in the vocal becomes nearly chant-like, working against the twelve-string guitar and organ until the track takes on a devotional character. Indian musical influence sits naturally beside American folk forms, giving the song an unusual spiritual geography. You can hear bits of Nick Cave, Nero Kane, and the Gun Club somewhere along the road, though everything has been dragged far enough into the Silver Cross universe to lose its passport.
Battled Hands feels earthier, wounded by experience yet stubbornly pointed toward recovery in a call and response ballad. Tromiczak sings about endurance with the authority of somebody who understands that survival rarely comes accompanied by trumpets. Fire, dawn, damaged hands, storms, mercy, and returning light become markers along a long recovery from suffering. The slow progression allows each image enough room to settle before the drums push forward again.
There is something almost physical about the weight of Tromiczak’s voice against the instrumentation. Reineke and Gold-Reineke surround him with enough space for every low note to feel carved into the room, while the harmonium and organ carry the devotional aspect further without turning the song into meaningless ceremony.
Together, these two pieces make Temple Hymns Volume Two into a record of musicians discovering exactly how much ground they share.
Listen to Temple Hymns Volume Two and order the double single here.
Society of the Silver Cross and Blood and Sun will take that meeting across Europe next month, where these songs should sound perfectly comfortable inside clubs, cellars, old halls, and any room willing to surrender its ordinary dimensions for a few minutes.
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