Volume V [CD]

Volume V follows on 5 years after Other Lives' fourth album, For Your Love, a record lovingly nurtured but then swallowed up by the Covid pandemic. The title signifies the latest chapter in the ongoing story of Other Lives, their fifth record of magnificent musical and emotional depth. From the first notes of the opening track and lead single "Mystic," it's clear that the cinematic breadth of their arrangements and melodies has risen several dynamic notches, with a fuller orchestrated reach and more towering drama across the album's 8 songs and 2 instrumentals - evidence of the band's hunger to keep progressing while retaining the essence of what makes them so unique and irresistible.The majority of Volume V was recorded in The Sheerar, a former church that is now the Stillwater History Museum. The Sheerar's acoustics partly accounts for the album's more cathedral-esque take on Other Lives' signature sound, which has it's roots in a form of Americana but is expanded via classical and post-classical forms and the influence of iconic composers such as Ennio Morricone and Henry Mancini. "I see Volume V as the beginning of Other Lives' second act," says Jesse Tabbish.