Microphones
The Glow, Pt. 2
[K]
Rating: 9.2
It's an amazing thing when pop music expresses beauty through ambiguity. After
being pummeled over the head for years and years with I Love Yous and You
Are So Beautifuls, the most direct way of expressing images of love and beauty
have pretty much lost all impact. Melodic tricks can wear thin just as easily.
Hooks are all well and good, but when you've seen a hook enough times, you
know not to bite.
Perhaps the problem is that most pop music doesn't put enough faith in the
listener. Everything must be laid out in the most obvious of terms, and
eventually, that obviousness obscures whatever the music originally intended
to convey. If you want to invoke the quiet beauty of the ocean, for example,
you can write a pop song that says, "Hey, the ocean is really beautiful," or
you can try to come up with a sonic approximation of that beauty.
It's a huge undertaking to attempt to capture something so visual in a song.
But for Phil Elvrum, it seems to be second nature. The Glow Pt. 2, the
follow-up to last year's gorgeous brainmelt It Was Hot, We Stayed In the
Water, captures the sea, the sky, and the mountains in a sonic panorama
that seems to live without beginning or end. A sprawling, swirling composition
that is both as varied and as consistent as the landscape itself, The Glow
Pt. 2 exceeds even its predecessor in capturing the simultaneous wrath
and fragility of nature. And sounding really, really cool.
Like It Was Hot's "The Pull" before it, "I Want Wind to Blow" opens
with subtle manipulations of acoustic guitars across stereo channels. There's
an amazing sense of open space to the track as overtones from a low, rhythmic
rumble, and from the stereo acoustic guitars, create a wash of barely audible
noise floating through the mid-frequencies. "I Want Wind to Blow," like a
good portion of The Glow Pt. 2, uses repetition and understatement to
transform itself from a simple song into a landscape.
And as with any landscape, the way the songs on The Glow Pt. 2 are
perceived greatly affects the impact of the record. This album simply must
be listened to on headphones. Hearing the record on regular speakers is
like staring at the Grand Canyon through a Viewmaster. The illusion of depth
is weak at best, and easily broken. With headphones, the sounds contained
within the record absolutely come to life, bouncing and slithering from ear
to ear. The use of stereo panning is as integral a part of the disc as the
melodies and instrumentation.
With this stereo enhancement, parts of The Glow Pt. 2 are absolutely
breathtaking. And perhaps the single most breathtaking song on the album is
its title track, which may or may not be a thematic follow-up to "The Glow,"
the 11-minute-long centerpiece of It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water.
Opening with blasts of fuzzy guitar and massive drums, "The Glow Pt. 2"
segues somewhat abruptly into another segment of stereo acoustic guitars,
before giving way to a drop-dead gorgeous wash of multitracked organs. On
top of this, Elvrum lets loose what could be the most striking lyrics he's
ever penned: "I faced death. I went in with my arms swinging. But I heard my
own breath and had to face that I'm still living. I'm still flesh. I hold on
to awful feelings. I'm not dead... My chest still draws breath. I hold it.
I'm buoyant. There's no end." Elvrum delivers these lyrics in a melodic
stream-of-consciousness style that's structured enough to be musically
riveting, but loose enough to sound spontaneous and sincere. As the last
words of the song fade, the swell of organs segues into a trebly acoustic
guitar and hi-hat section highly reminiscent of early Modest Mouse.
Nowhere on this album are there short, straightforward pop songs like It
Was Hot's cover of Eric's Trip "Sand" or "Karl Blau." Instead, the
record ebbs and flows gracefully between fragile acoustic numbers like
"Headless Horseman," and overpowering swells of noise, with all points in
between represented. The flow between songs on The Glow Pt. 2 is
absolutely flawless-- the album functions as one giant piece of music as
well as it does a collection of songs. Themes of flesh and blood, water and
wood, and life and death permeate the record, connecting well enough to
create a sense of something greater without beating you over the head with
its concept.
Ultimately, The Glow Pt. 2 is the sound of one man working through a
changing landscape-- a single voice challenging its surroundings while also
accepting that it's powerless to alter them. The disc ends with a throbbing
heartbeat, the most basic sign of life having braved through the stormy trek
that precedes it. The Glow Pt. 2 is unpredictable, volatile, vibrant,
terrifying, and comforting. The Glow Pt. 2 is alive.
-Matt LeMay