Review Summary: I make known the end from the beginning
When you picture the world of Endling it’s one that’s forever cast in dappled sunlight, surrealistic and disorientating, at once comforting but also unsettling. Our anchor in this strange/strangely familiar land is our narrator, though frequently his words betray deep unrest and troubling scenarios; the feeling you’re left with is akin to that you instinctively sense when attempting to navigate yourself while trapped within a semi-lucid dream; your sensory instincts are just ‘off’, has reality been knocked askew?
Suitably ‘Proper Nouns’ opens with the track that sounds the most dreamlike and near-medicated; ‘Superlatives’ is an immersive ‘portal’ that you slowly slip through, the song unfolding at a pace that affords the listener a moment to readjust to their new liquid surroundings. The Knife-like sonic stabs that herald the start of ‘Holidaymakers’ tell you you’ve now arrived at your destination along with a cast of fellow humanoids ‘filing through queues’. From here we enter the ‘Night Markets’, and this song is a revelation, boasting the sort of vocal melodies that Mark Kozelek or Neil Halstead would have embraced in the heyday of early ‘90s slowcore, only here they’re backed by rumbling bass tones and skittering drums.
The middle stretch of the album luxuriates in the atmosphere established by the opening trio, letting us drift further into this uncanny hinterland. ‘Sommelier’ is the song that sounds most like home, only with a dash of self aware homesickness stirred in for good measure; the distorted ghostly backing vocals remind us that perhaps we’re still half slumbering. ‘Dysania State’ confirms suspicions, asserting the ‘last thing I need is sleep’ over a spacious backdrop of piano and subtle electronics. Between these two tracks lies ‘Vianden’, a moment of emotional clarity with the repeated sampled backing vocals becoming a mantra of sorts as the lyrics paint prophetic images of sparrows falling in a ‘boundless sea’.
This image, along with all the other accumulated expressions of restlessness, unease and foreboding ultimately lead to the ‘doomsday scenario’-titled ‘Fires Raging in the Arctic’. Despite the nightmarish handle, the song itself only hints at a more all-encompassing collective devastation, instead returning to the individual once more, a man left to ‘build a home from the dust’. There’s a glimmer of resilience and hope in this gently swelling composition and that feels like the right note to strike; though ‘Proper Nouns’ isn’t afraid to leave the listener lost and seeking from time to time, it never threatens to set us totally adrift.
