Album Review: Eluvium – Nightmare Ending

INTRODUCTION

Eluvium’s new album is a change from their previous album, Similes,  in that is almost entirely composed of instrumental songs. The mood of each piece seems to come together to weave a musical story that entails a journey of warmth as well as one of drifting from one place to another. Matthew Cooper had a great deal of trouble in making this album, so much so that he shelved it to pursue Similes before completing it. Matthew describes each piece within this  album as a “Dream” or “Imperfection”, two aspects of the mind that exist in each of us. Imperfection is not something we focus on as a society, but Eluvium does a fine job focusing this aspect of human existence into something we can experience through their music in “Nightmare Ending.”

PROS

My experience with this album has been immensely positive, I was completely surprised with the level of depth in music I experienced while listening to it. The first song entitled “Don’t Get Any Closer” sounds as though it has a negative connotation to it, but the music tells a different story. It uses a slow tempo to give the experience of starting a new day, but in a more worn out fashion. Like studying for finals until late in the evening and having to get up and go take the test at sunrise, something I’ve had to experience first-hand in the past few days. This might sound negative but this piece gives me a feeling of a job well done, like how Matthew Cooper’s  hard work on this piece paid off. The next piece entitled “Warm” is true to its title as it paints the picture of a transforming time in a person’s life, possibly a dream or an old memory a person is thinking about that brings them happiness. We all have someone like that in our lives such as parents, children, significant others, and they all instill a happiness within us that we keep inside for times of strife and loneliness. “By the rails” is the first transition piece within the album. In this piece they use a soft drum tone to represent a train traveling down the track. The soft drum to me sounds like a heartbeat, like your traveling closer to where you’re heart lies. It feels more like a spiritual journey into the unknown, only knowing that your true passion lies ahead.

CONS

Finding flaws in “Nightmare Ending” was rather difficult, as this was an incredibly well thought out album.  The flaws themselves within the piece are purposeful and meaningful to the album as a whole.  I usually treat an album as an entire piece  and “Nightmare Ending” did break the flow a few times with songs that changed the tone and direction of what they are trying to convey to the listener.  The song “Caroling” can be accused of this as it feels it belongs more in a Christmas album with its light cheery piano notes.  I might be missing the point of its placement however as I can determine this was intentional.  I feel like the album goes back and forth between happiness and a sense of being lost, which presents the listener with some discordance between their emotions when the album changes its tone. No one likes to shift their emotions from one end of the spectrum to another in a rapid fashion, but good artistic music sometimes requires that.

VERDICT

Overall I was overwhelmed with how good Nightmare Ending was, I honestly did not expect to hear what I was experiencing. It was definitely one of the better music experiences I have had in quite some time, I would compare this to Naoshi Mizuta and his work with the Final Fantasy series of games.  Eluvium paints a picture of a world in great depth with emotions of great intensity attached to their pieces.  You can hear the dark but at the same time happy world that they painted with this album.  This was a great album to get me started in the Neoclassical genre as it really opened my eyes to what is out there. If you are interested in Nightmare ending, it comes out on May 14.