I’ve only reviewed a few albums here, and I haven’t really loved any of them. That is, until Animal Names‘ Let It Been.
From the first track, I was immediately engaged, and this intrigue lasted all the way until the end. Let It Been is wonderfully high energy throughout, which I appreciate – you can only listen to so many darker, more mellow stuff for so long before you need the equivalent of a musical upper, like Animal Names here. There’s something sort of Pavement-esque about them, just injected with a bit of a poppy flair.
My favourite track would have to be “(Where Is) My Space Puppy?”, and I don’t have a least favorite. This album is thoroughly enjoyable, and out of all of them, this would be my most highly recommended.
At 1.1 hours, Carta‘s An Index of Birds feels like one very long song. One excellent long song, however. I’m usually easily bored by albums without a whole lot of variety, but Carta managed to intrigue me from beginning to end. The sound waxes and wanes between quieter, almost ethereal tracks like “Hourglass” and builds to more intense songs like “Back to Nature”, the latter of which really is reminiscent of Goo-era Sonic Youth – which is a major compliment coming from me, because just like any other indie cliche, Goo is among my top favourite albums ever.
It should also be said that I listened to this album during a thunderstorm, and it made the perfect soundtrack, as it was just moody enough to evoke the perfect ambiance in my room as the rain poured. In the end, I feel that this album gets stronger near the second half. This is where the more intense tracks I mentioned are, which are heavier with vocals (though not exactly heavy with them, as “Birds” is 90% instrumental). The strongest track is the last one (“The Late Alfred M”), ending the album on a really beautiful note.
Overall, I’d highly recommend An Index of Birds. Especially during bad weather.
As I was listening to this album, I had this nagging feeling that Sarah June‘s voice really, really reminded me of someone else. This frustrated me for the longest time, until it hit me: Sarah June sounds exactly like Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter movies. This is not an insult! First of all, I’m probably the biggest Harry Potter nerd you’ll ever meet, so I thought it was awesome that I made this connection. Finding Harry Potter references in real life makes me unreasonably happy.
Seriously though, Sarah has an undeniably beautiful, almost haunting voice that perfectly complements a whimisical, acoustic-heavy accompanying sound. Vocally, she is totally Myrtle, but musically, she evokes Anya Marina, an artist I spent most of last year (and this year, and, okay, the present) obsessing over. Also noteworthy is the juxtaposition between her dark lyrical content (“The Reaper” is sung from the point of view of a dead girl bargaining with the Grim Reaper) and her rather gentle and soft musical style, somewhat similar to Nick Drake, or even Elliott Smith. But enough with the comparisons!
In Black Robes is a beautiful album on its own accord, and it’s another I’d definitely recommend. Not as strongly as Carta, but I recommend it nonetheless.
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