Review Summary: Hollow out the darkest sun
A mood underscores
The Haar that can’t be siphoned off into tidy descriptors like angry, anxious, or depressed. It can be all of those things, sometimes at once, but more than anything this album leaves me feeling hollow to my core. Like I’ve already been crushed, and I’m just lying in shambles in the aftermath. It’s an emotion encapsulated by that emphatic, singularly toned piano note on the album’s opener; it drives the nail just a little deeper with each repetition until the strings gush in to wash the pain away, and you along with it. “I Can’t Be Left Alone With It” is enigmatic and utterly dismal: the perfect overture for a record paralyzed by fear and trapped within its own vulnerabilities.
“Just one more drink to really numb the pain” is a verse that almost feels snuck into the boisterous “Ha Ha Ha”, which is a harrowing account of succumbing to one’s violent and abusive past. Ironically, it serves as the most upbeat track on the LP. Most of
The Haar winds along meandering paths that feel purposefully lost. There’s no salvation in “Carsaig”, which carries you into a mournful lull with the soul-bearing croons
“All my bruises are so pale”,
“I'm so tired of being alone”, and
“I can't shake the feeling of death”. The latter passage is a particularly eerie moment in which Mark Holley’s breathy, quivering voice quakes and erupts into sudden clarity, and it’s not long after that “Carsaig” comes crashing down within a crescendo of wailing guitars and earth-shattering drums. However, in typical
The Haar fashion, all demonstrative emotion rapidly retreats inward, and the song’s turbulence fades into a gentle pattering of drums - almost as if to veil the pain.
Even when
The Haar steps outside of its somber, grieving comfort zone, it still manages to sound gloomy and defeated. Take “Bitcrusher” for instance, whose beat is cool and collected, whose guitars are soulful and groove-laden; and yet, Holley’s morose overtones keep it muddled and sedated enough that it never sounds more uplifting than a stream-of-consciousness confession. “Turn Out The Lights” could have been lifted from
A Moon Shaped Pool’s string swept nightmares, “Shakey” is as ghastly and ethereal as an actual haunting, and “Darker Than Light” is entirely forsaken and barren. There simply isn’t much on
The Haar that doesn’t take existing pain and plunge it even farther into its own shadowy depths.
The ten minute closer, “In The Image of Perfection”, is a heartbreak of epic proportions with verses such as
“I'm tired of being awake” and
“I own your empty words” driving its bleak aura right into the soul of its audience. The song is the ultimate slow-burner, dragging listeners through every gutting confession and each agonizing emotional stab wound until it finally opens up like a ravine; vocals layer and strings well up in a moment that would sound a little like triumph if it weren’t for the refrain being
“It was a violent swing when you took the rope / All our imperfections into one”. Once more, the zenith is quick to recede. There will be no spurious insinuation of resolution, no promise that hope will prevail - just a downtrodden, grayscale still frame. I can’t be left alone with it.
