benhewerdine

of Montreal often gets talked about in terms of journal entries of a prolific maddish genius and if that’s true I find this album to be the peak of Kevin getting sick of his own shit and everyone else’s. This is an angry album whose lashing out often whips back at Kevin Barnes cooking along with rhythms and Melodys that I find to be of Montreal’s most accessible and enjoyable.

Beatific visions was the first non Beatles album I fell for. Punk turned perfect country peppered with an eccentric anxiety over political climates and being incapable of love. Even in the sweetest of ballads the punk ethos is still in full effect much like Gillian Welch or Elliot Smith this album finds immeasurable strength in the most delicate of flowers and weakness in war

Few albums capture magic for me as much as blinking lights and other revelations, it opens with an electric guitar loudly being plugged in, and I like to thing E is using the listeners head as an amp to sing out his songs of acceptance, which at the end of the day is all there is.

Something about an artists first fully realised creative vision always excites me. It’s like a superhero origin story and that’s on full effect here. Hear Harry take on ten little Indians, absentee fathers and the Beatles in a self assured confidence that propels the songs to punch above their weight.

These songs for me are so well written and soulful, beautifully sung and produced in an immediacy that feels like things are actually happening. A lot gets said about fjm lyrics but his melodic prowess is at full force here with melody lines that drip like milky piano notes. Lyrically it’s a focused vision that tells the story of mediocrity in a very human way whilst elevating the same ol’ tired archetypes and eternal truths to the modern predicament.