Review Summary: We are just getting by…
how we dig in the earth isn’t an easy record to pin down. Colorado’s A Place For Owls tick off a ton of boxes through the twelve songs on their sophomore effort - angsty alt-rock nodding to a certain Mancunian orchestra, twinkly Midwestern emo, delicate indie folk, brooding slowcore, and the melancholy side of post-rock all get their place in the sun at various points throughout the runtime. The magical thing, though, is that nothing feels disjointed - there’s an artful sense of balance, and the album congeals into an emotive and atmospheric coherent whole.
I was discussing this release with resident Sputnik icon Sowing, and he boldly declared the album “
this year’s Summer Moon” - high praise indeed, given how much grandiloquence There Will Be Fireworks’ long-awaited return inspired on this site back in the autumn of ‘23 (yikes, that was only a year ago?). For my part, I was surprised by this take at first, but subsequent listens to
how we dig in the earth have shown the wisdom of my fellow staff writer’s words (oh, how could I ever doubt?). The two LPs do, after all, share a certain ethos - moody and mournful, sure, but also full of human warmth and rich musical beauty. Part of the reason I didn’t recognize this comparison immediately, I think, is that while
Summer Moon is unrelentingly Scottish, completely inseparable from its creators’ Glasgow roots, A Place For Owls’ second full-length is, how do I put this politely - I guess I’ll go with “American as ***”. This claim isn’t based on complex analysis of the lyrics, but rather because this is simply one of those emo-ish records which somehow captures the desolate and isolated beauty of a roadtrip through the States just as well as the more self-evident troubadours of twang.
From start to finish,
how we dig in the earth rivals any release I’ve heard this year in terms of quality. “go on” might be a glorified intro track, but delivers upon the remarkably effective production we’ll get used to as the album rambles on, and gets us into the glorious sadboi mentality which is all over these tunes - “
go on and say it all, you’re not okay, you’re not okay at all” - quite the mission statement right there. Immediately after, “hourglass” aims for the heart - it’s very dark, but not without essential vitality, ending with a touching vow to push forward and search for domestic bliss. Later on, “desmond hume” sees the album at its most point-blank and explicitly personal lyrically, cemented by a muted and unsparing folky backdrop - a backdrop promptly positioned against the rock-ier build and satisfying crunch of “haunted”. Then there’s “no plans on saturday”, a beautiful anthem to, well, the ennui of adulthood - it’s starkly realistic, sure, but there’s real beauty in its simple devotion to keeping on - “
I am yours, you are mine, and we are just getting by”.
Closer “help me let the right ones in” deserves its own paragraph, not just due to the fact the nearly seven minute runtime qualifies as an epic by A Place For Owls’ standards, but also because it encapsulates, in rousing fashion, everything which makes this album so successful. Intermixed with gorgeous, chiming instrumentation, the lyrics tell a familiar tale, nodding to nostalgic portraits of youth while pondering a more uneasy future, without ever losing a kernel of commitment to striving for the best. Then the whole thing kindles into a gloriously overwrought climax - the singer’s voice breaks a little as he screams, the soundscape transfigured into soaring post-rock.
how we dig in the earth is that kind of album - maybe a little corny around the edges, but you can live in its confines and the rewards will be rich. It’s delightfully earnest, and the band’s display of songwriting is uncanny - the soft and the heavy, the hopeful and the bleak - it all becomes a gorgeous tapestry. I don’t know about you, but for me, at this time of year, as the trees become increasingly bare and the winter cold sinks its claws in, this kind of melancholic and unvarnished music becomes essential, and
how we dig in the earth came out at just the right time. "
The leaves will fall and fade, and everything’s the same”.
