On the latest release from Devon Church, the title itself acts as a warning of impending dissolution. ‘All That’s Solid Melts Into Air’ is a record that breathes with the heavy, pressurized atmosphere of a world on the brink of structural failure. Drawing its name from the observations of Karl Marx, Church has constructed a sonic landscape where the familiar stabilities of the twentieth century are revealed to be illusions, evaporating under the heat of twenty-first-century capitalism. By serving as the primary writer, performer, and engineer, Church ensures a singular, claustrophobic focus, creating an album that feels less like a collection of songs and more like a fever dream experienced in a fallout shelter.
The record opens with “All That’s Solid Melts Into Air,” a piece that establishes a shimmering, slightly unstable foundation. The production is expansive yet dense, suggesting a horizon that is simultaneously beautiful and toxic. This duality carries into “Nothing Sacred,” where the guest vocals of Alexia Avina provide a soft, ethereal contrast to the darker weight of the arrangements. Church’s voice occupies a low, resonant register, delivering lines that feel like secrets shared in the middle of a collapsing city.
In “Fall Like Lightning,” the political weight of the record becomes explicit. Featuring backing vocals by Ada Roth, who also provided the album’s cover art, the track questions the inevitability of our current trajectory. The instrumentation here is steady and deliberate, avoiding the frantic energy of a protest song in favor of a deeper, more philosophical inquiry. This leads into the aptly titled “Hungover In The World War,” a composition that captures the disorientation of living through a constant state of global crisis. The saturation of the mix reflects a mind overwhelmed by the “attention economy,” where every molecule of human experience is commodified.
The middle section of the album, including “Everything Shivering” and the delicate “Lilies,” showcases Church’s ability to find small pockets of humanity within the wreckage. On “The Lives Of The Poets,” again featuring Roth, the record examines the role of the observer in a world that no longer values the non-commercial. The sonic architecture is bolstered by the mastering of Rafael Anton Irisarri, whose expertise in ambient and heavy textures ensures that the low frequencies feel like shifting tectonic plates.
As the record moves through “Porcupine Shuffling” and the biting “Working Class Zero,” the listener is confronted with the reality of wealth inequality and social alienation. The album reaches its final, vibrating resolution with “Trembler,” where the vocals of Katy Pinke add a ghostly layer to the closing statement. It is a finale that refuses to offer easy comfort, leaving the listener in a state of heightened awareness.
Devon Church has created a work that is both a lament and a profound interrogation of our collective psyche. ‘All That’s Solid Melts Into Air’ is an essential artifact of the current moment, a record that refuses to look away from the fire while searching for the remnants of what it means to be human in the smoke.
To learn more or to have a listen, please visit Bandcamp.
