For me, any release by Alex Henry Foster is a momentous occasion. I don’t think I’ve ever come across any other artist that has continually managed to touch me emotionally consistently. Not only are his music and, by extension, performances something that resonates deeply with me, but the way he communes with his audience is something that inspires, that constant search for connection and communion.

“A Nightfall Ritual” is something that drawn from one of those prefect moments, a live show captured from Köln, Germany on 27th July 2024. The tracklist may only be four songs in length but it tops over forty minutes of intensity and beauty. There is also the added bonus that two of these songs are receiving their first official release from the band.

The album opens with new song ‘Up Til Dawn’, a pulsing spiral of a song. It throbs inside you like a heartbeat, connecting every single one of your senses. There’s an almost geological build as instrumentation adds to the strata of sound, the organic equivalent to Phil Spector’s fabled ‘Wall of Sound’. Alex’s vocals are given a sense of urgency that, looking back at his recent medical and health issues, add a counterpoint to the song, before the music switches up two thirds of the way through to follow suit. The guitars add playful riffs before the other musicians add further punctuation while incorporating the song’s original motif.

Lead single ‘I’m Afraid’ pairs a staccato guitar with the organic swell. For such a large band (a sextet who all add various different parts and voices), there’s space in music so it all doesn’t become too overwhelming (apart from the moments where it is intended to). At times the music comes across as a cross between David Bowie and Fugazi, a sense of scale that equals the cosmic in scope with a vision married with an almost hardcore punk sound and feel. It’s also worth noting how tight the Long Shadows are as a collective. Even though this is a live performance it could be quite easily be taken as a studio outing. There is a organic looseness to them that only comes when a band really know each other, giving each member their own place in the sonic map of the song.

‘The Son of Hannah’, a song that was premiered on the live album “Standing Under Bright Lights” exists here in another slightly evolved version from the original recording. This is one of the many positives from the Long Shadows as songs constantly change and grow from performance to performance. Each version becomes essential to the moment it exists in, something that’s been well documented with Foster’s live releases across various media.

The controlled chaos of the band is very much in evidence in the closing track ‘The Pain That Bonds’, taken from their first album “Windows In The Sky”. Here it is expanded, growing from the original’s kernel to a cinematic masterpiece clocking in at three times the originals length. It highlights the strengths of the musicians as artists, their playing both delicate and crushing in equal measure. It opens with various spoken word pieces that wrap around each other, ebbing and falling from your perception, before a squall of guitars scrape a soundtrack of noise. It’s like standing on the precipice of something so high that vertigo threatens your senses. There is melody here too, with Alex’s pained vocals supported with chants from various other voices. The music builds tension along the way before everything gives in to the weight behind it, the maelstrom increasing in intensity until you’re graced with a feeling of release upon its climax.

Foster and the Long Shadows have carved out an exceptional niche over the years, playing with your expectations of music and performance which is evident in all it’s glory on “A Nightfall Ritual”. The performances highlight Alex’s quest for articulating his unique artistic vision with the ubiquitous talents of the musicians that orbit around him, facilitating the needed musical narrative.

Alex Henry Foster and the Long Shadows are a formidable live experience that deserve to be experienced by a growing audience. Their mantra and mission of communion reaches far beyond the usual cycle of release and tour, with Foster and various band members building unbreakable relationships with their listeners. It’s music that reaches out across various different levels, provoking different reactions each time while rewarding repeated listens. Let’s hope that they can make their way back to the UK soon as we’re definitely long overdue time in their majestic company.