Review Summary: Here for a sad time, not a long time.
You may know him primarily for having the best beard in the now-defunct post-metal band Neurosis, but Steve Von Till has also been steadily putting out weirdo folk records since the turn of the century. If you know anything about his previous groups, you know that Von Till can manipulate mood and texture better than most. While Von Till's earlier solo work was more hauntedly bare in its approach—centered more closely around the acoustic guitar and Von Till's baritone voice—the project really started to develop its own amorphous brand of eclecticism in 2015 with the release of
A Life Unto Itself. Von Till began stretching and warping his song structures to allow space for orchestral strings and pedal steel guitar to really drive the songs more than ever before. 2020's
No Wilderness Deep Enough and 2021's
A Deep Voiceless Wilderness then saw the project embrace an affinity for piano and new-age synths, with the latter album being a fully instrumental and ambient-focused counterpart to the prior.
Flash forward to
Alone in a World of Wounds, and there is no longer anything traditional about Von Till's music as far as the conventions of Americana are concerned. Piano, synthesizer, and cello have come to dominate the space where acoustic guitars once grazed, but nothing has exactly been lost; every tool that Von Till has picked up along the way still has a seat at the table, and it's important to note how humble his approach has remained in spite of his rapidly expanding repertoire.
Alone in a World of Wounds may be Von Till's most expansive record yet, but there is still a shocking lack of excess; only a few tools are ever used at once, and each layered arrangement is both meticulously and sparingly composed as to never betray the sense of isolation the album's concept suggests. Opener "Corpse Road" is about as naked as this album gets (while retaining a certain cinematic scope), but this open space is filled to the brim with Von Till's resounding voice, which has developed its charcoal brush-like delivery into a much larger and more confident presence than before. He straddles the line between tasteful and overbearing amounts of soul at times, but his gut-wrenching narratives almost always pay heavy compliment to the instrumentals so long as you can get behind his dramatic huskiness.
And speaking of gut-wrenching, it should be no surprise that
Alone in a World of Wounds is a terribly sad record. Not only is Von Till tackling familiar themes of loss, disconnect, and inhumanity through his lyrics, but the arrangements are tear-jerking on multiple fronts. "Calling Down the Darkness" could easily go down as the most depressing slow burn of the year. The record is so consumed by a sluggish dismality, in fact, that it almost struggles to inspire much of an enthusiastic listening experience. It is absolutely gorgeous and full of subtle depth, but it's a tough chew, and it wears on the heart rather quick without providing much in the way of relief (which is why "Horizons Undone" ends up being one of the most memorable tracks for its relatively whimsical chorus). There are a few ways in which Von Till manages to shift tone and surprise the listener, though. "The Dawning of the Day (Insomnia)" sees Von Till reciting some spoken word poetry over a bed of piano and softly fiddling cello, and then "Old Bent Pine" and the closer "River of No Return" lean a bit into flanged electric guitars to create a wispy desert atmosphere through which Von Till's voice floats like a tumbleweed propelled by an ancient wind.
Alone in a World of Wounds may be strange, tortoise-like and completely devoid of flashy dynamics (most, if not all, of these songs start and end on a similarly grim note), but the calamity is so well executed—so honest in its baring of flesh—that one can't help but fall into the hypnotic misery and lose track of time. I certainly wouldn't recommend the album for your summer playlist, but I can see it coming back into heavy rotation during the dark months of the year. In the meantime, try to pour a bit of brightness into the world. Reconnect with nature. Tell your friends you love them. Do anything but let your wounds fester in silence.
