A lot of people have devoted a lot of ink to praising this record, and I can’t disagree with any of them. It is strikingly different from Young Prayer. It does evoke Pet Sounds. It is a romp through musical history. It is deeply personal and worth of the “Best of 2007” tag. There is no sense in summarizing the tracks or dissecting the sound. The charm is not conveyed in words (see album art). Simply put, it is a marvelous, marvelous record.
That being said, every time you listen to this record it sounds different. It deserves monthly, if not weekly revisiting. I remember for the first year I had this record I could barely wrap my head around it. I thought I had it all figured out, absorbed even. It sounded so lush, so layered, so effortless, and so perfect. Little by little, ever so slowly, all those thoughts changed shape.
It is sparse now, simple and minimalist and heavily labored. It shows its seams like deep scars. It’s like the record was packaged with an accompanying haze, an obscuration to distract from itself and propel the listener’s focus down this deep rabbit hole, a dreamland of false doors, back alleys and dead ends. With time and revolutions the haze slowly dissipates; the false doors are painted on, the back alleys just exercises in artist’s perspective, and the dead ends all tie together. You see it. You finally see it, and it’s even better than before. It is by no means flawless, and that’s what makes it perfect.
