I have crystalline memory of driving home from work in a blizzard and listening to this album. It was one of those records that came along at the end of the year (thanks some dutiful evangelism by my fellow music nerd buddy Cameron Hawk) and caused total upheaval of my year end list. It slotted in at #5, and I had only been listening to it for a few weeks at that point. That’s insane, but sometimes you just know. The best albums are like that. Every album in this Top 10 is like that. A no doubter. Undeniable. To use the parlance of my younger, surlier, less concerned about being taken seriously self, unf***withable. It’s funny because I wrote basically the same thing I’m writing here in my Top 10 of 2016 list. Per that list: “Cardinal definitely feels like a lifer. It’s a tremendous testament to distance and displacement, with equal footing in alt-country and emo revivalism. And now that I have wrapped my brain around it, I can almost guarantee I’ll be kicking myself for not placing it higher on the list in a few months.” Yep.
This is one of those albums that still gets me every time. There are so many moments on this album that are just spectacular, especially when you consider the form in which the band is working. There are these tremendous crescendos and brilliant lyrical turns throughout that just stop you in your tracks. It’s never better than the closing moments of the album when “New Friends” busts open all of the album’s pent-up tension in an emotional reveal. It’s one of those moves that immediately causes you to put it on again and order it from some random dude on Discogs.
No comments:
Post a Comment