Winter Creatures by Grand Hallway
LABEL: Porchlight Records

From the start, I knew something was fishy here. Or perhaps I should say rainy — Seattle outfit Grand Hallway’s newest studio album was recorded in Portland (yay! I live there most of the year), and upon listening to this gem of a record I could almost taste the endless drizzle on my tongue, the moody sky like a slick wet fish belly bloated with empty sun-promises, the infinite cups of excellent coffee which fueled the incredibly-productive studio sessions during which the album was recorded... The record was completed in only a couple of weekends. Some tracks were in fact written entirely in the studio, a testament to the band’s cohesive creative engine, since nothing here sounds at all ad hoc, rushed, or half-assed.

“This is an album of mournful bliss, one which invites you to look at the struggles in your life and repeat, emphatically, ‘what a gift it is to be alive,’”...

No, not in the least. The album is brimming with devotion, a small, dense collection of nine pieces with a lot of moods, all strung together by the themes of life cycles and mortality. This makes sense, given recent events in the lives of two band members: the death of chief songwriter Tomo Nakayama’s grandparents along with the birth of guitarist Jeramy Koepping’s child. And even though Nakayama is still employing a bevy of different musicians and taking advantage of the vast instrument selection at the Scenic Burrows studio, Tomo is no longer writing chamber pop, whatever that means. The band has gone in a more minimal direction, eschewing the orchestral microcosms and child choirs of past efforts and moving on from the typical Northwestern everything-but-the-kitchen-sink ensemble.

It works. It works like you wouldn’t believe. The new direction is fragile yet muscular, and the restraint exercised by Nakayama in the songwriting makes the climactic moments like the final section of the epic “North Cascades” all the more affecting. The music is still expanding, but it’s expanding inward, like a tree’s roots. I’m reminded particularly of Nick Drake’s intimate compositions, transcendental in their minimalism. The record is further bolstered by prodigious musician and producer Cory Gray (Carcrashlander), who carves space into the music as well as contributing synth, vocals and trumpet. His production makes “Fourths” glimmer like a still pond, burbling now and, then, as leaves fall into it and children skip stones on its surface. Indeed, many of these songs evoke natural imagery: they create a malleable mental space which undulates with my memory. This is an album of mournful bliss, one which invites you to look at the struggles in your life and repeat, emphatically, "what a gift it is to be alive,” as Tomo does on the final song.

“...by its ending I am definitely in a different place than where I began, a place I didn’t even know I was yearning to reach.”

Most excitingly, Shenandoah Davis’ presence has become more apparent. Check out her songbird harmonies on “Father’s Clothes” and quiet closer “Roscoe (What a Gift),” which sounds like the wind weaving through a thicket. But even though individual members are to be lauded for their contributions—especially Tomo for his intuitive, incisive songwriting, developing with every album—the most amazing aspect of the band is how tightly-knit they have become, how sensitive to each other. The result is an album which can be lauded equally for small moments—consider the scraped strings and phasing accentuating the climax of the intro—as well as for the compositional arcs of the songs themselves. The whole here is definitely more than the sum of its parts, but the parts are also infinitely more than the sums of themselves, if that makes sense. They don’t simply pile on to create a tumult, as could be said of some of the band’s older work; they congeal and supersede themselves, cease to be discrete parts and become facets of a complicated composition.

I knew this album intimately before I even heard it. This album is the sound of my awe as I walk through Forest Park in Oregon, the trees taller than God and deaf like heaven to my shouts. This album is the sound of both of my homes: like Portland, it’s small, damp, and leafy; like New York which will slip right out of your grasp if you don’t pay attention. So much is happening on these nine songs; each evokes a different network of emotions and associations for me, the entire thing meshing into a journey which is not goal-oriented but ambling, organic and expressive—yet, by its ending I am definitely in a different place than where I began, a place I didn’t even know I was yearning to reach. This is a truly excellent record, and highly recommended.


REVIEWED BY MANUEL ABREU
MANUEL’S FAVORITE TRACKS: “Winter Creatures” • “North Cascades” • “Father’s Clothes”


FREE MP3: “Roscoe (What a Gift)”
FREE MP3: “Little Sister”
FREE MP3: “Wildfire”