Title: Nightmare Ending
Artist: Eluvium
Genre: Ambient
Familiarity: None
1. Don't Get Any Closer: Holy mother of ever-loving christ what in the **** is happening to me while listening to this, my god this is one of the best ambient tracks I've ever heard. What a spectacularly wonderful composition. Really cannot endorse this track enough, my god. Rare songs like this deserve higher praise than "true love", like this is "one of the most beautiful compositions I've ever heard" territory.
2. Warm: Very nice again but doesn't quite hit me as hard and I think this one goes on a little longer than it needs to.
3. By the Rails: Wonderful little transition track here of sorts, love the subtle rhythm in the background. I adore ambient music that throws in elements like that. Very short, sweet, and to the point.
4. Unknown Variation: Definitely the most ambient of the bunch so far, there's not much going on at any one time but the slow movements are really engaging. Just a nice track overall.
5. Caroling: Holy
FUCK this track is flawless, everything about it works perfectly in the context of itself and within the album. Breaks up the string of ambient tracks with a busier piano-oriented track and the composition is simply gorgeous, I am honestly amazed with this record so far.
6. Sleeper: Incredible atmosphere to this track. Just gorgeous, Eluvium's style of ambient is
exactly what I love most out of the genre, there's beautiful soundscapes in the background but just enough going on with the slow piano to keep me engaged for the track's entire runtime.
7. Envenom Mettle: Just another great track, I love that strange shuffling sound in the background that adds rhythm. At this point it's looking incredibly unlikely anything gets less than a green off this album, although I am only halfway through at this point. Perhaps the style will begin to shift? All I know is that so far this album is brilliant.
8. Chime: I'm seriously adoring the more piano-fronted tracks that give you breaks from the longer ambient pieces. The vibe of this song is really mesmerizing, I ****ing love everything about it.
9. Rain Gently: Very very slow burner which this album certainly has plenty of, if I had one complaint it's that he's making some of the songs longer than they need to be although I guess that's a complaint I have with ambient music in general despite it being among my favorite genres. This track builds up into a very beautiful droney climax in the second half.
10. Impromptu: This man's piano compositions are simply spectacular, they make me feel both soothed and incredibly engaged at the same time which is a very difficult combination to achieve.
11. Covered in Writing: Utterly gorgeous but overlong again I think. This might have achieved true love if it was the first track on the album but now that I've been through an hour of ambient tracks it doesn't quite hit as hard although I still certainly enjoyed this track a whole lot.
12. Entendre: Oh dear looks like another shorter piano composition. Not sure if I'm ready for more of this. Oh god it's absolutely gorgeous, holy moly what a wonderful song yet again. I wonder if this guy has ever made an entire album of just piano music, I'd listen to the **** out of that. Every track on this album that is just him and a piano has scored true love from me, they are all absolutely brilliant. I'm running out of superlatives.
13. Strange Arrivals: Just a short, sort of grainy little track that leads in nicely into the final track. Whew, I hope this last track is a good one.
14. Happiness: .........yep, it's a REALLY ****ing good one. Beautiful introduction adding in instruments starting with piano into these pretty little twinkly sounding notes and a deep horn. Whoa whoa whoa there's
vocals?!?!?! Where the hell did this come from??? Holy **** it's the guy from Yo La Tengo!!! His singing sounds really nice in the context, and my god that droney organ sounding instrument that comes in when he stops...just stupendous. What an ending to an impeccable album.
End Result: One of the best albums I've heard in a long time, it does not get much better than this in the ambient genre. It's a little overly long but for extended sections it's basically perfect. I'm honestly frustrated because it makes me feel so inferior and that I need to step up my game with my own ambient music because it is simply not as good as this. However this album has truly inspired me to want to hone and develop my art more and more. This is a fantastic record that any ambient fan should add to their queue.
Love or Hate?:
True Love obviously.