Review Summary: But you were always one to stay the same girl, I know you want to be the rain.
This review might not be that great, I'm young and fairly new to this. Just felt like putting that out there.
Haunting, chilling, and distressed. These words describe the feeling and the overall tone of this album.
These guys are fairly known for making somewhat upbeat music with sad lyrics, that's a main reason a lot of people enjoy these guys more than, say American Football. But what happens when a band known for making upbeat and and fast songs, make an album full of much slower, and much sadder songs? This happens.
The album opens up on a high note, Pillars. It's chilling and it sets the mood for the whole album. The lyrics are dark and express fear of losing love. And probably my favorite song by the band.
What I happen to love the most about this album, is just how chilling (I will use that word this review. I wish I had an Aesop Rock vocabulary.) Jeremy Enigk's vocals are. I had no idea that a voice with that high of a register, would produce vocals that are just as haunting as the vocals you would find on an Agalloch album. And emo is great and all, but most of the time, the singer's are usually the least talented part of the group. For example, American Football. Great band, but it's just his voice is so whiny. But Jeremy, is a perfect vocalist for this genre, and his voice definitely stands out on this album.
But the singing isn't the only thing that makes this album a masterpiece. The instrumentals are all very dreamy and add a tone to this album. This tone being hard to describe, but all I can really describe them as, is just sleepy, but having enough depth and texture to keep me and other listeners awake. The acoustics are vibrant, the percussion is punchy, and the guitar tone is very monotone, but not in a bad way at all. It adds more depth to the story's progression.
Now I'm going to discuss what I interpret what this album is about. The album talks about either a breakup, or the death of a significant other. But the story is told in reverse, which at this time (pre Christopher Nolan story telling) was a smart move that hasn't been done too often.
The lyrically upbeat songs (i.e Days Were Golden, Guitars and Video Games) are towards the end. And these songs discuss love. Very simple love at that, showing that they don't need fancy things to love each other, all they need is themselves. And then the more lyrically tragic songs are toward the beginning (i.e Pillars, Roses in Water, 100 Million). And when I say tragic, I mean cripplingly tragic. You can tell by, not only the lyrics, but by the tone of Jeremy's voice, that he's not alright. That depression and anxiety are killing him, and he's not sure what to do.
Every album has a story.
