LogFAQs > #893925011

2. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me
Key Track: Soria Moria (

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF3DfaQJTTY)

I've spent the last forty-eight entries in this list telling you why you should all listen to those albums. I'm not going to tell you to listen to this one.

Essentially a diaristic singer-songwriter album charting Phil Elverum's desolation after the death of his wife of thirteen years and mother of his infant child, A Crow Looked At Me states in its opening lines that it has no intention of being art. Elverum has called it "barely music." It's sure as fuck not entertainment. This album begins and ends as a portrait of grief - a cathartic outpouring of deep, overwhelming sorrow - to the extent that it feels borderline absurd putting it on this list at all.

It would be unfair to allow the album's concept and lyrics to completely overshadow the musical value of this record. A Crow Looked at Me is a highly accomplished folk album, with beautiful melodies hidden among the meandering vocal deliveries and instinctive songwriting skill informing the subtle shifts in arrangement throughout the longer songs. This is a sparse, unpolished collection of songs, but it's a beautiful one.

But to listen to this is to commit to an experience like no other album. Elverum's words on every track here are emotional gutpunches; it will take you out of everything that you are doing and bring you into a world where nothing exists but this man and his deep, all encompassing pain. The words here are not dramatic, egregious or presented with any kind of agenda - they simply hang in the air, and force you to contend with the honesty they present. It's an exercise in sharing a man's heart-wrenching devastation, and it's as harrowing and visceral as any album I've ever listened to.

I'm not going to tell you to listen to A Crow Looked At Me. It is not an enjoyable album by any conventional measure. It doesn't present a full and satisfying narrative, nor are there any real lessons learned by Elverum over the course of his mourning. This is far too raw of a snapshot for that. But it is a listening experience that, once processed, feels oddly life-affirming; if nothing else, this is an album that gives you a new appreciation for what you have in life, and a reminder that love and happiness are fleeting and to be treasured. I can't think of many more powerful feelings to receive.
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And if you don't know, now you know.