Mount Eerie

Pinning down the music of Phil Elverum is not an enviable task. In a career that has included two well-documented, prolific projects—the extinct Microphones and the extant Mount Eerie—he has inhabited a litany of guitar-based styles. He has been a straight-ahead acoustic folk man, hanging his hat on well-worn chords and spinning tales with vagabond warmth. He has dabbled in lo-fi electro-pop, moaning out lines over fuzzy synth lines with more success than many who focus exclusively on such songs. He has forged his own hard-edged version of indie rock, one that ties the mumbling, self-conscious confessions of the most emotional slacker rock to blaring bouts of abrasive, near-metallic noise. The dude even actually made a black metal album.

Still, while each new release finds him restlessly attacking another sound, there is a consistent feeling to what Elverum produces. Whether it’s with keyboards, acoustics or distortion, Elverum always manages to compose something elemental, something that speaks to the most essential desires of the human condition, both in the searching tones of his melodies and in the blunt, but thoughtful poetry he sets to it.. As Elverum shouts over an acoustic guitar or challenges you to hear whispers over hammering distortion, there’s an endless fight between the desire to be something better and the crushing reality of failure. “Marriage,” off of last year’s Black Wooden EP, typifies Elverum at his best. The song opens with an acoustic guitar and an electric fighting for space, though neither gives up ground. “In my heart—is this my heart, and is it thumping?” Elverum groans. The moment overflows with the uncertainty of life’s pivotal moments. It’s this feeling that Mount Eerie nails better than most any other act going. —Jordan Lawrence