by Brett Abrahamsen
Night Palace is easily Mount Eerie’s best album since 2015’s Sauna. Phil Elverum has jettisoned the prosaic style which at times marred his recent releases and has instead opted to sculpt ominous, sepulchral, at times nightmarish soundscapes which evoke the power and grandeur of nature. This has always been Elverum’s greatest strength. No musician can capture the feeling of being alone in the deep, dark wilderness the way Phil Elverum can.
The opening title track immediately sets the tone—it’s an existential lament which is somehow both fatalistic and serene. “Breaths” is another highlight—haunting, cryptic, desolate. It’s followed by the oft-maligned “Swallowed Alive”—actually a harrowing and terrifying masterwork; one of the best on the album. “I Spoke With A Fish” contains some of the most profound lyrics of Elverum’s career (though it closes with an intriguingly bizarre joke). More levity is to be found in “I Saw Another Bird,” though, again, there’s an undercurrent of profundity here too. Even the shorter cuts—“Blurred World,” for instance—have an undeniable element of poignancy.
Elverum seems more invested in the music than the lyrics for the first time in a decade (which is not to say the lyrics are weak—quite the opposite). Previous albums felt like monologues, soliloquies, streams of consciousness—this one again feels like an epic tribute to nature. Elverum is deeply philosophical throughout, and the ghost of Kafka looms large at points. It’s a work imbued with meaning that is somehow paradoxically meaningless—much like existence itself. A semiotic nightmare. Highly recommended.