Album Review: Mas Ysa - Seraph

Mas Ysa is the musical project of Canadian singer and electronic composer Thomas Arsenault.

While his music is dense and complex, tending to be complicated on instrumental and emotional levels, his debut album is no less brilliant or intense than his earlier compositions. Seraph thankfully finds him including some much needed perspective in his songwriting, particularly on the masterfully overwrought duet Gun. The emotional weight of this record could easily have been crippling, but he manages to strike a balance between soul-crushing devastation and painfully humorous self-awareness that makes his bitter pills easier to swallow. It's an incredibly varied, intricate and textured album of sounds from deep within the heart.