The Chorus Music Club Society • Page 206

I don't think they sound exactly the same - it's just a couple songs mainly where I could hear some similarities!

 

I really need to get going with the albums I got recommended the last two weeks. My free days were wasted doing nothing more than playing Breath of the Wild and Pokemon Go lol. At least I got the Master Sword.

 

Great review! One of my favorite hidden gems. Agree with the Muse similarities but hope that doesn't discourage anyone from checking them out. I would recommend everyone at least listen to "Relentless." One of my all-time triumphant/inspirational anthems. Never fails to get me pumped.

I love the singer's voice and songwriting so I have tried getting into Low Roar - it's his solo project - but it's very quiet, dreary stuff. Not bad by any means but doesn't scratch the same itch at all.

 

all music pales in comparison to the glory of attaining the Master Sword

 

Ok, so I am about 3 weeks behind on @JediMasterKevo182 recs so here they are!

Starset: Transmissions and Vessels

I’ll keep this short since these albums have already been reviewed and I’ve talked to JediMasterKevo182 about them already, but both these albums are really good. Not too different from each other, but that is a good thing since this is a band with a theme and style that is part of the whole package with these guys. Right away I was impressed with the mix of electronic, heavy guitar and string instruments. The singer has a really good voice that reminded me of Breaking Benjamin in parts. I wouldn’t say this is a heavy band, but a both albums have screaming sprinkled throughout which gets the blood pumping. It’s hard to recommend songs because one thing I can say about this band is these albums are more like full experiences than just random tracks grouped together on an album. I will and have been listening to this band (esp Transmission which is my fav of the two) since they were recommended to me 3 weeks ago.

Highlights: Halo, The Future is Now, Rise and Fall, Satellite, Last to Fall, and Bringing It Down


Hawthorne Heights: Hurt EP

This album wasn’t bad but nothing really stands out. I won’t be mean, but I’ll say that they are no longer the “cut my wrists and black my eyes” band to me and I no longer think they are terrible.

Highlight: Beneath the Silver Strand (check this out if you are on the fence about these guys, this song is what I’d recommend)


This one is for @Micool1 rec to me this week -

Silverstein: This Is How the Wind Shifts

I know it’s a crime, but I had never listened to Silverstein even though I knew they were a staple in the scene growing up. The strange thing is that I listen to the singer’s Podcast where he talks about his band a lot and still never made a effort to check them out lol.

Right off the bat their opener Stand Amid the Roar impressed the hell out of me. I figured given the genre that there would be some screams mixed in with some poppiness, but did not expect them to be as heavy as they were. The first three tracks were all fast and heavy which I enjoyed and was a good start to my introduction to this band. Then the first of three intermission like songs comes in and I thought it was clever how the title of two of them make up the album title. The album slows down a bit there but even slower songs like A Better Place has killer heavy break down for the bridge and outro which I will always be a fan of.

Random ramblings:
The slow build up in To Live and To Lose works so well and is def a highlight on the album.

I listened to the deluxe version so I heard songs not originally on the album like I Will Illuminate, which I dug a lot since it features their more hardcore sound.

I will def be listening again and will check out the rest of their work

Highlights: Stand Amid the Roar, Massachusetts, To Live and To Lose, On Brave Mountains We Conquer.

 

I knew Starset would sit well with you and I’m glad I was right! Glad you’re all caught up for next week now!

 

Yeah they are a worthy addition to my discography haha. And yeah I had to get these out as I'll probably be offline this weekend and next week for the most part. I'll miss some of the Sum 41 bracket

 

Do a one week bench then? No worries!

 

SESSION 15 PAIRINGS (03/19-03/26)

@anonimito // @Nate_Johnson

@bachna84 // @JediMasterKevo182

@ugman_2000 // @Larry David

@Micool1 // @theagentcoma

@Michael Schmidt // @nickyeatworld

@cshadows2887 // @Kiana

@broken22 // @Spenny

@Wall Of Arms // @js977

@Patterns in Traffic // @highfidelity203

@JRGComedy // @sophos34

@thenewmatthewperry // @Jdaniels

@iCarly Rae Jepsen // @skogsraet

Did I forget you, or do you want to come off the bench? DM me and we can work it out!

 

Also if by Monday your partner hasn’t contacted you let me know

 

Mount Eerie
Now Only

Review by Kennedy H.





"Night Palace

The best thing about the past
is that it's over
when you die
you wake up
from the dream
thats's your life
Then you grow up
and get to be post-human
in a past that keeps happening
ahead of you"
- Joanne Kyger

This poem by Joanne Kyger was the album artwork for the 2017 Mount Eerie release, A Crow Looked At Me. It is a poem that was sitting on the desk of Geneviève Castrée, the deceased wife of Phil Elverum before she died. The record is a harsh and immediate reflex of loss. It is a documentation of a single father dealing with the death of his loved one - or "his person", as Phil puts it. A Crow Looked At Me painted a devastating picture through its words of the realness of death. It did not attempt to answer existential questions in regards to the purpose of life. Instead it was a real journal of a real person in real pain. The album simply opens with the phrase "Death is real".

Today Phil releases a sequel to his 2017 release. This record is called Now Only. The artwork of this record is a photograph of Phil's refrigerator, on which you'll find a photograph of Joanne Kyger (the author of the poem cited prior), a small print of a painting called "Foxgloves" by Nikolai Astrup, a quote by Walt Whitman, and among many other things you'll see photographs of his late wife. The artwork alone allows us to see into the mind of Phil. When Phil was asked in an interview done by Stereogum about the artwork for Now Only, he had this to say:
"it’s all these totemic objects that enter my life and consciousness every day. Some of them are from Geneviève’s time, some are from after, some are condolence postcards, or just friends’ writing. In lots of people’s houses, the fridge becomes like a shrine, in a way, even though we don’t treat it with so much heaviness. As I was finishing making these songs, I noticed how many things on the fridge had entered into the lyrics themselves, just by subconsciously looking at these pictures many times a day as I walk past the fridge."

The images on this fridge immediately builds a connection between this record and A Crow Looked At Me. With the photo of Joanne Kryger, and a painting called "Foxgloves" (a flower significant to his 2017 release) its obvious that this record is a continuation of what Phil had sung about last year. However, while the first words sung by Phil on A Crow Looked At Me foreshadowed perfectly the content, direction and overarching themes of that record, the first words sung by him on Now Only serve a similar purpose in foreshadowing - but this time carrying a different tone. Phil begins the record, and sings:

"I sing to you"

No matter the reality of the absence of his person, on Now Only, Phil sings to her. "Tintin In Tibet" opens the record with Phil establishing that not only he sings to her in these recordings, but he sings to her on stage performing them. He sings to her when he is standing in the yard, and he still says "I love you" to her. It is easy to dive into this record and call it what it is at face value... "a really sad record". But its obvious in this opening of Tintin In Tibet that there is more than just sadness in this record. There is love. There is love undying, regardless of deaths victory over his wife. The song continues on, stepping back in time and reciting memories of the first time these two met.
This isnt to say that there isn't still moments of despair on this record. The track closes with Phil talking about how he pictures where she could be now:
"Right before you died thirteen years later in our house I remember
through your gasping for oxygen you explained that you were thinking
about that high cold air wrapping the globe.
Singing above the mountains of the gods.
And I do picture you there: molecules dancing."

He then states how he would rather her be with him and their daughter, and much like in A Crow Looked At Me, he states that there was no reason she died. Only that it happened, and he wishes that it didnt. In a track on his 2017 release, Phil explores this even further. The song "Seaweed" brings Phil to realize that his wife did all of his remembering for him. He realized he cant even remember if she liked certain things or not.

"What about foxgloves?
Is that a flower you liked?
I can't remember
You did most of my remembering for me
and now i stand untethered in a field full of wild foxgloves
Wondering if you're there
Or if a flower means anything"

These are words from track 2 of A Crow Looked at Me. There is a definite sense of hopelessness in these words. Almost an attitude of "everything has lost meaning and beauty". However, on Now Only, Phil offers a new perspective to this thought on the track "Two Paintings By Nikolai Astrup" singing:

"But then the foxgloves grow
And I read that the first flowers that return to disturbed ground
Like where logging took place
Or where someone like me rolled around wailing in a clearing
Now I don't wonder anymore If it's significant that all these foxgloves spring up
On the place where I'm about to build our house
And go to live in, let you fade in the night air
Surviving with what dust is left of you here
Now you will recede into the paintings"

In these words Phil paints flawlessly the imagery of pain, but also healing. Such is one of the purposes of this record. Its so easy to see it for just a sad record, when there is so much more underneath its obvious layer of depression.

As the record continues forward, Phil continues the pattern of general pondering which leads into recounting very specific memories and discussing the significance they have to him. The final words of "Tintin In Tibet" and the first words in "Distortion" connect seamlessly together. If one was to listen to the record while reading along to the lyrics, "Distortion" picks up seamlessly and perfectly where "Tintin" left off. In doing so would reveal a constant battle Phil is having with himself on this record. This is what the sentence would actually be if you connected the last line of track 1 and the first line of track 2:
"so I sing to you. But I don’t believe in ghosts or anything."
This theme, this contradiction, is all over this album. The moment where Phil speaks to Geneviève, but then quickly corrects himself saying "but i dont actually believe that can happen". It happens in the track "Earth" where Phil says that she is sleeping out in the yard now, but immediately after, he actually speaks to himself in the track singing, "What am i saying? No one is sleeping". One cant help but to assume that through all of this Phil has thought of the "what if's" concerning some form of afterlife. But he is always fast to assure himself he doesnt believe in such a thing. In the lyrics of the final track "Crow Pt2" phil sings:

"You're a quiet echo in loud wind
But when I'm trying to, I see you everywhere
In plants and birds and in our daughter
In the sun going down and coming up and in whatever
And the myths that used to get told around the fire
Where a seal's head pokes up through from underwater
Crossing a threshold between two worlds, yours and mine
We were skeletally intertwined once
But now I notice ravens instead
I don't see you anywhere"

Its like Phil's undying love for his wife is almost pushing him to hope for more. To believe she does somehow exist. However, no matter how much she lives in memories, and no matter how much a part of him may or may not want to believe her molecules are still dancing above mountains, he always comes back to the point of "now only". At the end of the day, he believes in the now only. Meaning: we are living the present, and even though we can reflect on the passed and hope for a future, today we only have now. Despite all of this one thing remains certain: He is reminded of her in everything he sees.

In the albums title track "Now Only" Phil (hilariously) recounts being flown out to a music festival "to sing these death songs to a bunch of young people on drugs." While he is leaning against Skrillex's tour bus in the middle of the night, he looks up into the starts, sees the Orion constellation and says "I looked up and saw Orion wielding a club and a shield
and there you were again, majestic, dead wife.". Geneviève was a cartoonist, and on Phil's website he actually has a shirt on there that is a drawing Geneviève did of herself as the Orion constellation. As he is reminded of her existence by looking up into the night sky, he even wonders "and what is left but this merchandise?" - which could possibly be a reference to those very shirts.

Lyrically, this record could be discussed and dissected for days. It is a 6 track album that feels like a 12 track album. Some of the songs on here reach the 11 minute mark. There is so much said in this record. Its impossible to discuss it all in one review. If A Crow Looked At Me was an instant reaction to the most tragic human event possible, Now Only is finding a way to still love someone after they're lost from said tragedy. It is a reflection of life, and not just of lost life. It is a reflection of life being lived. It is a journal of memories that make someone who they are. It is a human experience that is being shaped by a "post-human" hope. While A Crow Looked At Me was an urgent release of anguish, Now Only is just as urgently trying to scream into a deep canyon of fog at a lit up inhuman castle saying "I love you" and in response hearing "just keep going" [reference to "Soria Moria" by Mt.Eerie].

but sometimes people get killed before they get to finish
all the things they were going to do.
That’s why I’m not waiting around anymore.
That’s why I tell you that I love you.










Buy this record at: P.W. ELVERUM & SUN, LTD. - MOUNT EERIE

 

@Larry David@bachna84 @Dog with a Blog @zmtr @teebs41 @Colin Your Enthusiasm
@fenway89

tagged some friends i know already enjoy the album and i a couple i think should check it out / read my review above first

 

Beautiful write up, will listen on the way to work tomorrow

 

This is a great, great fantastic write up and makes me miss your writing in this club. Fantastic, I’ll give this album another listen with this perspective

 

Thanks for reading friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Shit. I've heard about Mount Eerie and what he sings about but I haven't listened to any of his stuff. Now I want to but damn it sounds sad as hell. Nice review.

 

God I wish I knew how to read

 

definitely give it a shot.

wat

 

be glad you can't it's sad

 

but like i said in my review, there is so much more present than "sadness" ;)

but yes, there is sadness among everything in it

 

lol reading the pitchfork review for the first time after i wrote mine and they made the same point about seamlessness and the last line of Tintin going into the first line of Distortion. damn crooks stole my point.

 

@Kennedy a Pitchfork writer confirmed

 

For real though, I’m at work but I’ll read when I get the chance

 

Great write-up, friend!

I’ve only listened to this once, but can’t wait to dive into it more deeply.

 

Best review this thread has seen. What a record too