Album Review: The Alphabet of Hurricanes

This fan review of AoH nailed something that I've had a hard time finding the words to explain. In the process, he loses the words to explain it himself.

Thirdly: the songs. Usually, when I do this reviewy thing, I walk myself through the songs, but for now I'm not going to do that yet. Which is a very, very good thing.

I like two types of music: music that I can't sit still to and music that makes you hold your breath, waiting for and at the same time dreading the end, because of its sheer beauty. Music has to move me, preferably beyond myself, if at all possible to that transcendent plane where you accidentally bump into spectres of words that don't exist or ideas you never had because you couldn't get a hold of them.

TAoH strikes a great balance between tracks that are immediately and obviously great and tracks that are growers. This is probably the defining mark of any album that withstands the test of time - it has layers that you revisit, or emphasise, at different times. Stand-out tracks would have to include the first single "Please," as well as "Me & Stetson" and "Told My Troubles To The River."

Bonus disc turns out to be five tracks; a decent EP of new and reworked album tunes. Oddly, this album has given me a new appreciate for his second album, Just Like Blood. Unfortunately this means I've got to import the Japanese version for the bonus track (hint to TM's label: US fans deserve bonus tracks, too).