8/10

Bayonne’s 'Filters' is the work of someone learning how to live alongside grief rather than moving beyond it. Where 2023’s 'Temporary Time' dealt more directly with loss, this new record feels steadier and more spacious, shaped by acceptance without pretending that acceptance is ever complete.

Throughout, Roger Sellers builds the album from luminous synths, piano, acoustic guitar, percussion and carefully placed environmental sounds, creating a record that feels both detailed and weightless. There's plenty happening inside the arrangements, but very little of it feels crowded, as each element seems designed to deepen the emotional atmosphere.

The influence of Enya and Air makes sense, particularly in the record’s interest in texture, but 'Filters' never feels overly indebted to either. The artist has always had a strong instinct for combining repetition with movement, and here that approach feels far more refined.

‘Multiphase’ is a particularly strong example of this. Built around a recurring synth figure and a relaxed pulse, the track carries an unusual emotional weight through its connection to a series of strange voicemails Sellers’ mother received after his father’s death. It's a context that sits quietly beneath the surface, adding another layer to a track already concerned with memory, absence and the difficulty of making sense of what remains.

But what makes 'Filters' so effective is the balance between beauty and restraint. He lets the grief remain complicated, but allows warmth, rhythm and clarity to coexist alongside it.

Immersive, thoughtful and quietly affecting, 'Filters' marks a graceful progression for Bayonne. It's less about closure than perspective, and that makes it one of the project’s most emotionally convincing releases to date.