Literally every time I heard Chappell Roan in 2024, I thought to myself "it would be better if this were The Last Dinner Party."
Shopping at the mall, scrolling through TikTok, walking through the park while other people have their bluetooth speaker blasting... every "Hot To Go" meme... I just wish all those people were listening to The Last Dinner Party instead. I'm sure they'd dig it, assuming it really is about feminism and pageantry as much as they claim it is and not just "it's popular."
Come to think of it, let's all just go back and listen to The Long Blondes again.
It feels cliche to call an artist's latest release the culmination of their body of work, but Night Palace truly feels like the album of sounds, words, and emotions that Phil Elverum has been steadily building toward for twenty years. Not quite a fully realized masterpiece, but certainly closer than he's been in a long long time. This is the kind of album that the listener sits with for years and years, getting lost exploring its winding paths and narrowest tributaries time and time again, following the trails and staring off into the distance and letting its ice cold breeze permeate the core of your being in small doses. The common threads between nature and noise have never been clearer.… More