Balmorhea : All is Wild, All is Silent

Balmorhea: All is Wild, All is Silent
[2009]

8.8/10

How this album has managed to go unaddressed and unrecognized by so many music outlets since its release is beyond me. Balmorhea gave us River Arms last year, which hinted at their brand of chamber/post rock with a country/western flavor. This year they give us All is Wild, All is Silent which is a definite improvement on their previous work, and a much more potent realization of their musical intentions.

One of the things that bogged down their previous album was the stretches of softness and silence which did more harm to their music than emphasize its delicacy. One of the major improvements in this album is they have grasped how to wield the sparseness and cast silence as an effective tool to their songwriting. Rather than songs dwindle out and die, only to come back and say "we're not done yet!", lonely piano melodies drift, or strings emerge from the void as signs of a breeze, and the songs either reveal themselves in cautious layering or explode into existence. Balmorhea was also wise to add a drummer to their collective this time around, whose presence gives the music the percussive life and rhythm necessary to propel some of their pieces from post-rock hazes to festive and liberating dance ceremonials.

"Settler" is the perfect intro track and microcosm of the various flavors of the album, with cello, violins, and guitars all gently intertwining around a piano line until the presence of the drums completes the lineup. By the end of the song you've had a taste of the various sounds the album will explore: mid-western ambience, country-folk how downs, rock breakdowns, orchestral tranquility/thunder, and grey in between. The final track stands as a mesmerizing closer, for it is the only one where Balmorhea attempt to incorporate a heavy (or any, in this case) vocal presence. Between these every idea is explored and bound together firmly, even though it still sounds as open and expansive as the plains themselves.

Balmorhea have done something fantastic with this album, by capturing and blending the rural traditions of the west, south, southwest, and midwest, folk and galeic tradition and stellar compositional work into music magic.

-Unkie Clamz