If there is one album that you need to buy this year (apart from Nick Cave & the Bad Seed’s Skeleton Tree), it’s Thought Forms’ third album, Songs About Drowning. Released tomorrow, November 4th on Invada Records, it’s just sublime. It’s no secret that they are one of my favourite bands, both recorded and live, and it makes me so happy to see how far they have come over the years, using their talent and experience to continuously push themselves further and further. I love Ghost Mountain so much, and Songs About Drowning takes their sound and talent across the lake to a new, higher mountain top.

This is their most intense and deep album to date in my opinion. The theme of water flows through the entire album, gushing from the title, trickling and rushing around the lyrics and constantly an intrinsic part of the music, at times conjuring up an expansive ocean, at others the soft melody of a summertime creek. Water is pure, water is murky; it has hidden depths and cleansing powers, and it is both freeing and treacherous. Water is life but it is also a death of some sorts. Song About Drowning is both ocean and stream, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it is river flowing into ocean flowing back out into a dark lake in the mountains.

While there is still that original Thought Forms sound that I love with all of my heart, Songs About Drowning takes on even more depth with the addition of Jim Barr on bass. Charlie Romijn’s vocals are stronger and clearer than ever, more powerful and beautiful, taking the lyrics and making them into poetry. As always, Deej Dhariwal and Charlie’s guitars sing to each other and their voices work in harmony, feeding off each other and bouncing against the melodies. Guy Metcalfe’s drumming has never been more powerful, rolling and beating a path through the album. There is darkness and sadness in the music, but also a certain form of hope and future pinned on a beacon in the sky. I challenge you to put your headphones on, close your eyes and find it.

While the album really works as a cohesive unit and should be listened to in one sitting I do have some personal favourites: Forget My Name which just makes my heart ache, Inland, which makes the hairs on my arms stand on end with its beauty and sadness, and The Lake which is just so poignant. There is so much heart and soul in this album it is impossible to not be moved to tears and to want to crawl inside the music and live through the lyrics again and again.

Songs About Drowning will be released on November 4th and can be purchased from all of your usual outlets, but there are still some formats left on the band’s PledgeMusic page (any funds past goal are going towards an awesome charity that is dear to my heart), and you can also order directly from the Invada website here. As with any Thought Forms record, the design and beauty of the album is fabulous. I suggest getting the vinyl because it’s gorgeous!

 You can check out the super trippy Wolff Music video below, and try to catch them out on their European tour with 65daysofstatic right now or next year on their headlining tour.

Through these pages I will absorb into me, and with these strings I will absorb into me" - The Bridge