Review Summary: Is this post-rock?
Imagine you are climbing to the top of a hill overlooking a city in the middle of the night. It's not strenuous, rather, you focus on the ambience and solitude the moment offers. Crickets are chirping, a light breeze is blowing, and you're completely alone. It's pitch black, but you have the distant city lights and the trail in front of you, making your way up to the top. Stars are above your head, and you're lost in your thoughts. Eventually, you crest the hill and you're faced with a view of the city, watching tiny taillights glide on a grid of streets. In what feels like a gut punch synchronized with a slow-dawning realization, everything clicks into perspective. Everything fades away while sitting on top of the hill. No one knows you’re there, no one cares, as there you sit, simply observing. It's not saddening, rather, it's a bit comforting. The warm darkness feels a bit like a blanket, and you feel like you could sit there above it all, watching forever. You wish you had someone with you, someone you could pull close and sit with in a happy silence, but all you have is the same crickets and the same breeze to keep you company. And that's OK. You feel lonely, but you can't do anything about it. And, by and by, the taillights continue, tiny people living their tiny lives, and you, completely detached, sit there on the dirt.
This summates how Stratosphere feels to listen to.
The little bit of magic that truly pushes this album to perfection is how it manages to simultaneously stay both grounded and extraterrestrial. What ties these two together is the core feeling of isolation reflected within Stratosphere. Remoteness is respective to space and earth, and Stratosphere illustrates this with impeccable clarity. Tracks like 'Constellations' and 'The Landing' ace describing this cosmic seclusion, while other tracks such as 'The Twins / Romantica' are enervated and earthbound. The lo-fi production gives the album an organic feel, contributing heavily to the atmosphere.
This album is a beautiful love-child of ambient, shoegaze, and slowcore genres. The emotion carried by 'Reed To Hillsborough' is near-crushing, the fuzzy, climactic guitar on 'Echo, Bravo' is absolutely blissful, and the weighty haze of the title track brings the already slow-moving album to what is almost a stop. No track is filler; the album is remarkably cohesive, with all tracks conveying and adding to the unique flavor of Stratosphere.
However, one can only objectify a work of art so much. Sometimes it clicks with people; with others, it's dismissed as superfluous. The acclaimed "best albums" seem to be the ones that resonate with the most people, and I could never see Stratosphere doing that. All I know is that it has clicked for me.
