Hello once again readers from various corners of the internet. I bring a review which I have been planning for quite some time now. It deserves a graceful and just review, and I plan to do it justice.
Album Review
Mount Eerie
Wind's Poem
This album has and represents a movement back to when things were simpler. Phil Elverum is a man who epitomizes this ideal. He works in a business making and selling his own records and artwork, he runs his own record label, he writes his music in such a way that mistakes are left in, and there is such a raw and powerful feeling to his music, like he is there singing to you in the room. He is the master of that lo-fi sound, which is representative of his work as The Microphones, but this record is more than that. After a period of time in 2003 there he spent some time in Norway in a cabin writing and living a solitary lifestyle, he changed his band name to Mount Eerie and his name from Elvrum to Elverum. His first albums as Mount Eerie have a similar feel to them as the older Microphones albums. But Wind's Poem is different. To begin, this album is in some areas an assault of the ear, loud distorted sections with a black metal feel to them, but with a twost, something different.
"Wind's Dark Poem" sets the album off with a blast, the kind of thing where you buy this new album, and you think you know Phil Elverum pretty well, this song dissuades you of that. Granted "The Glow Pt. 2" has a bit of what's being shown here, but not in this intensity. The double-bass pedals and overtly-distorted guitars gives you this feel of intensity, and if you can get through the first minute, you get the lyrics. Phil speaks of the wind speaking a poem and of flames and fire, really stark and powerful imagery. This is a song which acts as an overture to the rest of the album. Beautiful lyrics, powerful music, and the delivery really sets you in the music, you become part of it. Speaking of such elemental things that Phil speaks of makes this music coarse through you like a primal element.
The next two songs are classic Phil Elverum. "Through The Trees" is a monolithic song, wherein the first two and a half minutes are organ and humming. He doesn't make it easy for you to get comfortable; you can't just be spoonfed something as immense as this album, or even this song. Phil himself said in an interview that putting a song that's 11 minutes+ as the second track of an album is such an idea that it's going to make you sit up and really listen, "...I put it right at the beginning, compulsively difficult, just to clearly define that this album is weird and a little challenging right at the beginning. No easy rides." this makes the album a real masterpiece, the little details. "My Heart Is Not At Peace" is track three, and it is quite a short song, and the imagry just rips you heart out. He speaks of the violence in his heart and all the ways which he is feeling unrest: "I was writhing in the tomb, my heart a frozen boulder, the romance and all I've rejected comes like music on the wind." this song is beautiful in so many ways, and just so full of agony and morose it is amazing and beautiful.
To speak on every track as I have these first three would end up being a novel, so I will highlight two more songs of note in this mythic record; "Between Two Mysteries" and "Lost Wisdom Part 2". The first of the two is a bubbling little song with a simple drum beat with these layers of synthesizers, percussion, and little guitar licks which build the song in such a fashion that it makes a static platform for the vocals to perform upon. The latter of these "Lost Wisdom Part 2" is my personal favorite in this album. It epitomizes this powerful anguish feeling in the album; with a descending chord progression in tremolo guitars while the drummers literally freak out on their instruments, it brings out a immense deep emotion which after this volume clears and the texture changes to add an aural break. the drums creep in with a simple quarter note beat, synthesizers come in outliing a new chord progression, punctuated with single guitar notes. Then double stops and the vocals finally come in at the perfect time, any later and it wouldn't feel right. Phil comes in: "I think the screaming wind heard my name, significance found in rocks, and the mountains slowly blowing in the river, lost wisdom returns." these are the words of a man who is looking for wisdom and is answered by the wind, and puts them into song. truly a work of a genius.
This album is the epitome of continuity, power, emotion, and musical mastery in Phil Elverum's unconvertional way. If you don't go and purchase it, you are that much the fool.
10/10
Until next time.
Album Review
Mount Eerie
Wind's Poem
This album has and represents a movement back to when things were simpler. Phil Elverum is a man who epitomizes this ideal. He works in a business making and selling his own records and artwork, he runs his own record label, he writes his music in such a way that mistakes are left in, and there is such a raw and powerful feeling to his music, like he is there singing to you in the room. He is the master of that lo-fi sound, which is representative of his work as The Microphones, but this record is more than that. After a period of time in 2003 there he spent some time in Norway in a cabin writing and living a solitary lifestyle, he changed his band name to Mount Eerie and his name from Elvrum to Elverum. His first albums as Mount Eerie have a similar feel to them as the older Microphones albums. But Wind's Poem is different. To begin, this album is in some areas an assault of the ear, loud distorted sections with a black metal feel to them, but with a twost, something different.
"Wind's Dark Poem" sets the album off with a blast, the kind of thing where you buy this new album, and you think you know Phil Elverum pretty well, this song dissuades you of that. Granted "The Glow Pt. 2" has a bit of what's being shown here, but not in this intensity. The double-bass pedals and overtly-distorted guitars gives you this feel of intensity, and if you can get through the first minute, you get the lyrics. Phil speaks of the wind speaking a poem and of flames and fire, really stark and powerful imagery. This is a song which acts as an overture to the rest of the album. Beautiful lyrics, powerful music, and the delivery really sets you in the music, you become part of it. Speaking of such elemental things that Phil speaks of makes this music coarse through you like a primal element.
The next two songs are classic Phil Elverum. "Through The Trees" is a monolithic song, wherein the first two and a half minutes are organ and humming. He doesn't make it easy for you to get comfortable; you can't just be spoonfed something as immense as this album, or even this song. Phil himself said in an interview that putting a song that's 11 minutes+ as the second track of an album is such an idea that it's going to make you sit up and really listen, "...I put it right at the beginning, compulsively difficult, just to clearly define that this album is weird and a little challenging right at the beginning. No easy rides." this makes the album a real masterpiece, the little details. "My Heart Is Not At Peace" is track three, and it is quite a short song, and the imagry just rips you heart out. He speaks of the violence in his heart and all the ways which he is feeling unrest: "I was writhing in the tomb, my heart a frozen boulder, the romance and all I've rejected comes like music on the wind." this song is beautiful in so many ways, and just so full of agony and morose it is amazing and beautiful.
To speak on every track as I have these first three would end up being a novel, so I will highlight two more songs of note in this mythic record; "Between Two Mysteries" and "Lost Wisdom Part 2". The first of the two is a bubbling little song with a simple drum beat with these layers of synthesizers, percussion, and little guitar licks which build the song in such a fashion that it makes a static platform for the vocals to perform upon. The latter of these "Lost Wisdom Part 2" is my personal favorite in this album. It epitomizes this powerful anguish feeling in the album; with a descending chord progression in tremolo guitars while the drummers literally freak out on their instruments, it brings out a immense deep emotion which after this volume clears and the texture changes to add an aural break. the drums creep in with a simple quarter note beat, synthesizers come in outliing a new chord progression, punctuated with single guitar notes. Then double stops and the vocals finally come in at the perfect time, any later and it wouldn't feel right. Phil comes in: "I think the screaming wind heard my name, significance found in rocks, and the mountains slowly blowing in the river, lost wisdom returns." these are the words of a man who is looking for wisdom and is answered by the wind, and puts them into song. truly a work of a genius.
This album is the epitome of continuity, power, emotion, and musical mastery in Phil Elverum's unconvertional way. If you don't go and purchase it, you are that much the fool.
10/10
Until next time.
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