Mike Ventarola of the internet radio station Hidden Sanctuary described Trance to the Sun as "one of a few select bands from that part of the world whose previous compilation appearances, CD’s and tour dates read like a who’s who for the goth underground.
"Our music is for the nocturnal environment, delivered in a trance-like state, made possible by the wealth of energy dealt to earth in the daytime by the sun.
Zoë's vocals are often indiscernible, which can be a bit frustrating, but it's the aural quality of her voice that is more important, acting as another instrument and not just a vessel for lyrics, which here are dream-like in their flow and not bereft of meaning.
By the time our west coast shows rolled around, our respective record companies were booking us a joint national tour.... "Mike lost his voice toward the end so I did my best to sing for them in Atlanta.
[24] Despite frequently being considered as part of the gothic rock genre, Sain did not view the music as such, though he did credit its listeners with discovering many noteworthy bands: "Goth is an important doorway for lots of things that would not be accepted easily anywhere else.
The album relied heavily on the Morpheus synthesizer manufactured by E-MU Systems, and credited its performance to Lucian S. Donato as a third member of the group.
Dave Segal of Alternative Press wrote: "Trance cast off the crutches of conventional song structure and bask in a shimmering miasma of tweaked and freaked guitars, synths, violins and bass...
These nine long songs move with knight-like stealth and elegance, wreathed in all manner of bizarre noises..." Albany, NY's Music Advocate wrote that "Venomous Eve is fog-shadowed walks through perfumed night gardens, and languorous waltzes in cold-orb lit tower ballrooms set to brooding gothic-shrouded atmospheres.
Robert Alonzo, who had just joined the live line-up on drums for the first time in the band's history, played only one earlier show with the group prior to Wakefield's departure.
[32] In 2021, Sain remastered the album with an expanded 16 page booklet featuring photos and history from Trance to the Sun's inception through the Venomous Eve era for re-release on Below Sea Level Recordings.
[33] Sain enlisted Dragonqueen vocalist Dawn Wagner, who had opened for Trance to the Sun during the Cindytalk tour, as a replacement for Wakefield in 1997.
Gary Thrasher of Outburn Magazine wrote: "Always at the forefront of experimental goth music, Trance to the Sun don't appear to have even slipped a notch after the departure of vocalist Zoe Wakefield.... With a voice that can swoop from the cloudy heights of Cocteau Twins' Liz Frasier down to the sexually charged growl of Switchblade Symphony's Tina Root, Dawn brings a whole new feel to the band.
It is the only Trance to the Sun album to feature all three vocalists—the first released recordings with Blue, as well as unreleased tracks from the Wagner and Wakefield periods—and contains many of the band's most popular songs including "Execution of the Stars", "Slave", and "August Rain V.3".
[39] From a May 1999 review by Thomas Roche of the San Francisco-based Gothic.net: "Most striking upon listening to this album is the amount of energy that throbs through the music--the rhythm tracks are always active and the bright bass churns smoothly, keeping each song driving along with the intense sensation of movement no matter how moody and spooky the vocals and guitar can get.
"[40] The band toured the U.S to support the album with additional musician Joaquin Gray on bass guitar as joint headliners with Seattle's Faith and Disease, joining together for the end of the set.
"[43] A live recording of the 1999 Urchin Tear Soda tour from Santa Barbara, which features four songs from Urchin Tear Soda and the songs "Automatic Reversal" from Azalean Sea, "You Can Never Cut Your Hair" from the 4-CD Cleopatra Records compilation The Black Bible, and "Malla At Ease" from the Cleopatra Witchcraft Compilation, was released as the limited CD-R release Florakleptonomy (1999).
[44] In 2000, Trance to the Sun undertook a second tour in support of Urchin Tear Soda with Joaquin Gray returning to bass duties.
Sain considered Atrocious Virgin to be among his best work, referring to it on the Trance to the Sun Bandcamp website as their "gothic-psychedelia magnum opus".
You can only have that happen so many times..."[49] Sain spent the summer of 2001 recording and producing the album The Astonished Eyes Of Evening for the Los Angeles band Cinema Strange, which was released on German label Trisol.
[55] A best-of studio collection personally assembled by Sain, Spiders, Aether & Rain...The Finest Works Of Trance to the Sun, was concurrently released on Projekt Records in 2007.
Along with songs from each full-length studio release to date, the collection also featured the unreleased outtake "Winter Furnace Winds" from the Dawn Wagner period, and the Cocteau Twins cover "When Mama Was Moth".
The cover art once again consisted of artwork by Blue, and included photos from an unfinished video for the Atrocious Virgin track "Sleeping With the Natives".
[60] In 2012, as part of a Tess Records tribute at Portland's Brickbat Mansion, a live performance collective called Ascension to the Sun was formed.
[63] In a September 29, 2013 Kickstarter Backer's Interview video, Sain and Blue cited many reasons for bringing back Trance to the Sun.
[65] In November 2013 in Portland, Oregon, Sain and Henderson performed instrumental versions of four new songs as Trance to One Half of the Sun a few days prior to recording their guitar and drum parts.
Reflecting what their rehearsals were like for the album recording, the show featured a backing track with bass and keyboards but no vocals, which "showcase[d] the way our new songs sound live in their present, half realized state.
Shortly afterward, the band released a live video of "Execution of the Stars" from Azalean Sea 1998 1997 1996 / Spiders, Aether and Rain.
Sain stated that he was ending involvement in all other musical endeavors until the album was complete, save for an already agreed-upon engagement playing bass guitar for the late summer 2014 Spiritual Bat tour.
opus.fm wrote: "On Via Subterranea, their first full-length since 2001’s Atrocious Virgin, Portland’s Trance to the Sun conjures up a heady blend of goth, shoegaze, and psychedelia that brings to mind even such a landmark album as The Cure’s Disintegration.
Ingrid Luna Blue’s voice is coy, ethereal, and sultry, delivering abstract lyrics like “I could disrupt the orbit of your distant molten eye” and even garden gnome-inspired streams-of-consciousness.