2009keepers - 3
keeper avg .300
It was difficult to get into this low-key concept album, however critically-acclaimed. the first half-dozen songs consist of three hazy instrumentals, a filler ballad, Arcade Fire clone "Sylvia", and the Belle and Sabastian-styled single "Bear". While "Two"**** could also be mistaken for Arcade Fire, it's heavy beat makes it closer to Neutral Milk Hotel if it was recorded with semi-professional equipment. The dreamy "Shiva" is relatively unassuming before the unsettling "Wake"****, where a quiet shuffle punctuated with raspy, cavernous breaths gives way to an uplifting pipe organ coda. "Epilogue"**** builds from another middling Neutral Milk Hotel ballad until by the end Peter Silberman is singing in a soaring falsetto, only to be abruptly cut-off by a distorted but moving keyboard coda, possibly to evoke the institutional setting of the album. Even without carefully processing the album's lyrical content, I appreciate its atmospheric and evocative production. It's final 4 song cycle is especially moving, but it does take a while to get there.
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