Every band lucky enough to get to make a second record learns the journey there comes with a thousand hard choices. Double down on a sound that worked so far? Undertake wild-hair experiments to escape narrow boxes? Or let the weight of expectations inside and out paralyze you? All of the above plus more, if we’re honest—a lot can get in the way of “just make a rad record you can be proud of.”

For Seattle’s Museum Of Light, the path to Diviner became clear at Ocean Sound. Set against stony peaks and icy fjords on the island of Giske, Norway, the turf-roofed studio’s setting let everyone involved bask in the kind of mythic landscapes that always served as a kind of closet influence for the band. Turns out inspiration is easy to come by when it’s nudged along by a walk down a wind-raked coastline or a night spent tracking with hallucinogenic auroras dancing in the sky. It wasn’t always comfy: Each day began with a cold plunge in the Norwegian Sea, as prescribed by returning producer extraordinaire Scott Evans (Sumac, Thrice, Kowloon Walled City).

These methods yielded a record that stomps with heavy, crushing swagger while sheltering the hollows of sparkling melody and hushed breath that set Museum Of Light apart. Going beyond the blueprint of their debut Horizon would’ve been impossible without the addition of new bassist and certified Tøne Lörd Jeff Bartlett, who dug up the bones of the earth and somehow strapped them to rosewood. Singer Elissa Alvarez both channeled and defied decades of opera training to transform into a beyond-human choir that gives Diviner its ethereal soul. And award-winning poet Amelia Urry gifted the record its pulse with haunting words about the slippery nature of existing in a lost world.

In the end, “making a rad record you can be proud of” was all that Museum Of Light set out to do — international twists and turns be damned. We think they got there. Listen for yourself.

Museum of Light Diviner Test Pressing

Museum of Light

Diviner Test Pressing