Mount Eerie

Mount Eerie

Lost Wisdom

[4.5/5]

The sole problem with Phil Elverum’s new collaboration featuring Julie Doiron (Eric’s Trip) and Fred Squire is that, like life, it’s over too soon. Weighty, moribund concerns circle the 10-song, 25-minute disc, ranging from disconsolate, circumspect opening title track to the album-ending “Grave Robbers,” which expresses with world-weary melancholia, “Our ghosts stay confined wherever we haunt/Hopelessly want to, but cannot get away.” Recorded quickly and sparsely with few overdubs, there’s a hushed intimacy possessing these tracks that recalls early Bright Eyes or Palace Brothers. Absent are Elverum’s typical atmospheric sonic embellishments, so there’s a crisp, spacious vibe to the album that reinforces the stark, questioning tone of the lyrics. Doiron and Elverum’s harmonies fill the empty stage with quivering light amid stormy subject matter, evoking life’s fragility vocally, as well as lyrically. Doiron’s presence and Squire’s understated electric guitar imbue the album with haunting, spectral beauty equal to anything Elverum’s done. (P.W. ELVERUM & SUN) Chris Parker

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