2016’s Light We Made was meant to be the final full-length record from Pennsylvania rock band Balance and Composure. When they announced their breakup in 2019, things weren’t clicking the way they used to; it felt like the group had run out of road. But when the pandemic took hold the following year and ripped away all routine, vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons started to miss his long-time bandmates. “Once everything is taken away from you, you remember what you like about it, and the pure reasonings of actually just having fun and using music as an outlet,” he says.
with you in spirit, the fourth Balance and Composure LP, is an arresting, atmospheric collection of melodic post-punk and towering rock. The record’s cover photo, taken by Simmons at a family reunion last summer, is a striking capture of the world Balance and Composure have conjured across these 10 songs: while two children play on a lawn excitedly, a summer storm’s dark gray-blue clouds loom in the background. Indeed, with you in spirit thunders and stirs, dipping between beautiful, crystalline arrangements and punishing, earth-shaking climaxes; in between all, a gripping, near-physical tension crackles and growls and grooves, waiting to rip open.
