Phil Elverum’s newest album as Mount Eerie is in many ways a return from the dark, stark realism of his last few records to the vast poetry of his earlier work. Full of fire, lightning, rain, wind, and fog, the 26 tracks on this 81-minute double LP search for eternity in these familiar subjects and the quotidian efforts he spent his last three albums painstakingly documenting. On “Broom of Wind,” for instance, he’s the sweeper, the broom, the object being swept up, and the wind all at once.
Elverum is more political than ever before on Night Palace, speaking in no uncertain terms about the evil at the root of the American project on tracks like “Non-Metaphorical Decolonization” and “Co-Owner of Trees.” He’s also funnier: On “I Spoke With a Fish,” for instance, an unprecedented trap 808, a men’s chorus, and other bizarre elements culminate in a lull in which the fish, voiced by Jeff Bridges via a Big Lebowski clip, responds, “I dig your style too, man.” He pivots in musical style more than in thematic material across the album, from early-O’Rourkian folk rock to black-metal screaming and many more sounds in the infinite gulf between the two. Read our interview with Elverum here. —Raphael Helfand
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