Spite Cathedral- The Rag Doll Transition

Released: February 14

The Rag Doll Transition is a rather unique concept album whose premise is somewhat adjacent to the classic Pinocchio story. Over the course of sixteen tracks, we are told a story about the proverbial rag doll who goes through an unusual awakening to become a human. It’s a compelling story which is told through a seemingly incredible variety of sonic approaches that go in all kinds of unexpected directions. Honestly, it feels as through every track is completely different in terms of the sounds and compositional approaches, primarily being held together be the strength of the narrative. 

To illustrate, there’s the second track outside of the introduction “Chance Meeting.” It’s feel like a predominately ambient track but it has the very strong early PSX  RPG vibes with a swelling motion that forms a strange loop. It works quite well and I really enjoy the unexpected nostalgic feeling it brings about, but it also conveys that start of the story feeling as the mystery slowly begins. From there, things definitely get wildly different especially as the next track takes on a less ambient feeling and features some absolutely twisted and decimated drum loops that feel like they are struggling. It’s a much more sparse and minimal approach that feels less harmonious hat the previous but still feels like it belongs somehow. But this motif is somewhat replicated later on in “At the Jazz Club” with another set of twisted and decimated loops that have that same struggle feel. 

There’s a lot of incongruity in the album, which appears to be intentional. One moment things are noisy and seemingly all over the place, while the next the are quiet and calm with just a few touches of weirdness. I feel it is a clever way to explain the story of this unnamed doll as it slowly gains consciousness and begins to assert its own agency. The stripped down nature of “I’m Not Your Doll” carries a bit of weight in this respect as it feature just a single track of aggressive arpeggio that slowly grows in its intensity. Then the end track (before the outro) is about thirteen minutes of quiet seething drone that conveys a sense of exhaustion. It’s an all a fairly well-crafted story that is carried spectacularly well by the collection of wordless narratives that it is embedded in.