It's been a few years now since Kary humbly made their presence known with their 2001 Dependent Music debut, "The Sound Of Beauty Breathing". A rough around the edges exhibition of experimental prog-rock, the album quickly won over those looking for something honest, leaving almost all who were lucky enough to experience the talented introduction anxiously awaiting more. Although the bulk of the groups focus looks to have now been dedicated to the Wintersleep project, Kary none the less regrouped for what very well may be their swan song effort, "Light". Thankfully they did too as this is an album that is leaps and bounds beyond their previous work, ultimately becoming an inspiring venture on nearly all fronts explored.

Perhaps one thing that kept Kary from really making their mark with their last album was the raw production which it contained. Fortunately, this aspect has now been rectified as "Light" comes off as fluent and rich sounding, inching the band further away from the lo-fi stylings they once found themselves entrenched in. With a fuller-bodied production now in place, all members of the band seem more capable of individually asserting themselves as they toy with colorful layers and textures. There's no question that the songs do still remain rather skeletal and loose in vision and concept, but even so they feel far more accomplished than the groups earlier output. Primarily rhythm section driven and surprisingly aggressive sounding, the intricately timed material present is a welcome blast of emotionally honest progressive rock that should delight fans of Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age and dredg alike.

To be clear though, Kary are not a heavy rock band as much as they are an experimental one. There's no overproduced melancholy or technical mastery for the sake of showing off in place here. Instead what one is given by Kary is a heartfelt performance from a band intent on pushing their own limits and transcending the conventional means of what music has increasingly become as of late. As such this album brims with subtle complexity and haunting musicianship as interwoven guitar and bass parts crash against heavy handed drumming and hypnotically droning vocals. Such a formula will obviously rub those attuned to paper-thin songwriting and hooky choruses the wrong way; but for those interested in music that is actually written to be expressive and creative rather than to be played on MTV or in stadiums, the 'light' at the end of tunnel has finally arrived.