Review Summary: Beautiful, sad, and utterly confusing, the greatness can hardly be overstated. However it takes a long time to grow and understand, making it hard to quantify.
Wow. Sometimes you listen to something and have no idea what you're hearing. It's so weird, strange, and different to what you normally listen to you feel like you don't have the right to like or dislike it; this is such an album. In fact, the first time I listened to this I was so baffled that I put it aside for several months.
One thing did stand out on that oh-so-important first listen though. The Microphones is the name Phil Elverum released music under, along with a host of studio musicians, or so I have read. And the fact that this was written by one person is impressive. The album sprawls over 20 tracks and is over an hour long, and the production is something else. When I first listened to The Glow Pt. 2, I had never heard of 'lo-fi' and was used to pristine studios and live quality stuff; the idea of using lower sounding production as a technique to deliberately create a certain atmosphere was alien. Because of my ignorance, it sounded different and startling. It made me uncomfortable.
A while later, I thought I'd give the album a crack again. This time, the production didn't shock me, but impressed me. It sounded careful, as though everything sounded as it did for a reason. The atmosphere bit me.....and I realized during the 14th track that I had forgotten to listen to the lyrics. I didn't dislike Phil Elverum's voice, but in the wake of the beautiful music I had no idea what the album was about. And over the next few weeks, I made a habit of falling asleep to the album, with the music gently lulling me to a catatonic state like nothing else could.
You could say my understanding of this album was gradual. I focused for the first time, as hard as I could, on deciphering Phil's cryptic lyrics, concentrating with everything I had. It struck me once again at how particular this album is: while not technically a concept album, it certainly has consistent themes, and it's not a happy album. The title track hit me the hardest, with almost straightforward lyrics. The use of the separately tracked strums gives this track a disjointed feel, and the lyrics are performed beautifully, covering up the rather painful subject matter. This is true for most of the album, where the beauty of the melodies and production become achingly sad when you manage to hear the lyrics.
I'm not sure if this complexity is a good thing or not. I feel like this album is objectively one of the greatest things ever with it's unique complexity, but it's so difficult to crack and I still feel like I've missed large portions of it (even though I've listened to it well over a dozen times). It's impossible to accurately rate this album without feeling rather sheepish. But its brilliance is undeniable, and beneath the layers of sound, there is a masterpiece. This album manages something very powerful that's hard to describe, but ultimately makes it vastly intriguing. I can't tell if it's a classic, a pretentious piece of garbage, or simply rainy-day mood music, and it seems to fall somewhere in the middle, but comes through in all the best ways in the end.
