“Eternal Radiance” – The Light That Stops Fading

The record began with a flicker in the void. It ends with a light that no longer goes out. Everything between those two points is nine tracks.

“Eternal Radiance” runs 6:52 and is the second longest on the album.

In the first track the heart was “a fading spark”. Here the opening verse says “our souls entwine as one” and never once uses a word that puts anything out.

Between those two lines there is no miracle. There are eight tracks in which, in order, he found a fixed point, met someone, stood his ground, promised, endured and stopped fighting.

Which is why the last track has nothing to prove. It can simply shine for seven minutes, because everything that led to it has already happened.

The chorus goes: “Eternal radiance, our souls burn as one, in boundless light, our journey’s won.”

It is the only place on the record where the word “won” appears, and it appears in the perfect tense. Not “we will win”, not “we fight” — done. After eight tracks in the future tense, that line sounds like setting something heavy down.

The track has no big finale, and that was deliberate. It ends on an outro where the fiddle and one line are left: “In boundless radiance, our love has no end.” No key change, no final hit.

This record grows. The first two tracks run a little over four minutes each; the last four run from 5:35 to 6:52. With one exception — track three — the further in, the longer.

I did not plan that in a spreadsheet; it came out of the material. The less there is left to prove, the more room there is. The early tracks are tight because something is always needed in them. The late ones can simply last.

On the previous record it was exactly the other way round — “Ann’s Harmony” sped up from the middle. Two records about one story, two opposite curves.

If you heard this record in order, you walked with someone from the void, through the storm, the meeting, the refusal, the vow, the trial and the summit, to here. Nine steps, none of which skips the one before it.

And if you heard “Ann’s Harmony” before it, you now have both sides. That record ended with Ann being one with the sea she was drowning in at the start. This one ends with a light that stopped fading.

Those are not two different endings. It is one, told by two people.

You can hear the whole record on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music.

This is the last post in the series about “Pulse of Boundless Light”. If you listened to the record alongside these texts — I hope something in them rang true.

Thank you for being here.

Adam Smentoch Creator of the Dust Anthem project