My Heart an Inverted Flame Explore Psychedelic Mindscapes » PopMatters

The descent to the ritual is immediate. The slow progression of “Every Step Is Corpsed” acts like a pendulum, centred around Andee Connors’s deliberate drumming. At the same time, Marc Kate’s synthesisers carve through the void in bright, sharp colours. A dichotomy lies at the heart of the opening track, one that defines My Heart, an Inverted Flame’s sophomore record, My Death Is More Beautiful Than Your Life. The ceremony is pulled between eras and modes, its punishing side rooted in 2000s drone/doom, its more otherworldly pull reaching back to 1960s and 1970s krautrock.

As “Every Step Is Corpsed” ends and “My Body, My Problem” settles in, the ethereal krautrock essence takes over. It shifts into an electronica-driven approach, moving closer to a contorted Tangerine Dream-like form. Here, the synthesizers turn piercing, and the soundscapes turn radiant, opening up the space. At the centre of it all is a sense of wonder, a moment when the magnitude of the cosmos can be briefly glimpsed.

Connors and Kate reach the same extravagant heights by taking a more rock-oriented approach, swapping kosmische musik drift for a more rigid krautrock framework with “Necrosomethingology”. Here, the structures are more rigid, driven by guitar-mimicked synthesizers and a steadier rock progression. Still, the result is the same—a repetitive trip through psychedelic mindscapes that never ends and never changes.

What grounds this dreamlike fascination is the gritty and oppressive drone/doom edge. Even when it is not the main structural pillar of a track, its looming presence still infects the structure. “Whispers in a Dead Language” stays within the dreamworld, but it takes on a more ragged edge, with heavier synthesiser riffs anchoring it with an earthy weight. However, deeper descents are also possible with “Yes ( _ _ _ _ _ _ )” taking the feedback to extremes and channelling the sheer hostility of early Khanate. It plunges Connors and Kate’s world from radiant light to harrowing darkness.

It becomes even more punishing in “There Has Always Been the Disappearing Floor”, with the sparse, crushing drum hits setting up an ominous repetition and the feedback morphing into an asphyxiating form. The one downside here is that it remains too controlled, with Connors and Kate not letting it collapse into a complete debris of noise and feedback. Even in subtler moments, this restraint feels like a missed opportunity; for example, the cutthroat vocals in the background of “You. Alone” would be far more horrifying if pushed to the forefront.

The interaction between wonder and dread completes the ritual of My Death Is More Beautiful Than Your Life. However, it feels like My Heart, an Inverted Flame have not yet reached their full potential. Looking at recent works that interweave darkness and light in a drone style, with Nadja’s Luminous Rot and Sunn O)))’s Life Metal/Pyroclasts standing out, it feels like Connors and Kate have not fully arrived at that point. Pushing further in either direction, toward total noise dissolution or fully realised krautrock structures, might be the way forward. However, their pedigree suggests they will find the next step, and it will be even stronger than their current, already solid, output.