by Oliver
on January 16, 2023
in Album
Ambience Americana in slow core mode including drone offshoots: Shelby Obzut joins in The Death of Cupid already the third Mentally Illalbum since the beginning of 2022 – and is slowly getting the attention it deserves.
This time Obzut (most instruments, production, writing) receives direct or indirect support from Justin Suquilanda (piano, trumpet), Scout (drums), Ella Wheeler Whilcox (concept, lyrics), Paul Braddon (artwork), Napoleon Sarony (artwork) as well Edouard Bisson (artwork, album cover) for a “concept album regarding love! inspired heavily by late 1800s americana, their social history, and their art“ to create, the one just at the end, so at the latest with the drone meanders in the closer, which were sketched out for almost 13 minutes Favorite Painalways felt an improvised momentum regarding planning dogmatically determined by the narrative in the essence of The Death of Cupid puts.
The superior (with latent Godspeed-post-apocalyptic secrecy attracting) theme song begins not far from the previous ones Mentally Ill–Discography plucked minimalistically reserved in the dark loneliness, scratches the folk with baroque thoughtfulness, before in the end all shades intensify and even merge into the shuffling drone metal, where actually Earth suhlen.
The first shimmering Warmth relies on the mysticism of a dark noir-jazz abyss, at least vaguely: the collage of feedback approaches strides and dreams into an ethereal score, strumming nostalgically through the past, meanwhile Logan’s Song more contemplative undermined the peaceful ambient with washed-out vocals that rippled out of the open-form ether.
Not only in Tongue, which is vaguely reminiscent of Oli Knight, before the number gets post-rock booming nuances in a less spartan context, and Love Breathed His Lastwhich recites spoken field recordings from a distance as a midnight carpet of sound, and as a conclusion embarks on approaches to a more conventional song, while remaining imprecise and aimlessly flowing, works The Death of Cupid insofar as an eclectic mood piece that lacks really outstanding scenes and that primarily wants to be consumed passively – in the right mood, however, the imaginative enigmatic nature of an often somewhat unfinished-looking record makes up for this so promisingly (which is why it also has an immanent sympathy bonus for the rounding up in the rating).
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