Earlimart
(Palm Pictures)
Not many albums capture the full spectrum of emotions from love to hate and sorrow to happiness. Earlimart's latest album does just that. The artwork on the front cover foreshadows the mood of the album by depicting a heart accompanied by tear drops.
While fails to match the same intensity as Everyone Down Here, it still embodies passion, like their former album only in a different, yet brilliant light. The first track, \Hold on Slow Down"" alludes to the fact that the album is mellow and low-key, but it exemplifies the band's creative genius.
At the beginning of the album, Earlimart's sound and energy are similar to their prior album incorporating distinctive harmonies and piano, but they add something drastically new, strings. This album contains strings in almost every track, which adds flavor and a new dimension to Earlimart's unique sound. This striking direction shows their growth as a band and their ability to change their style but still remain true to their roots.
Earlimart is known for distortion and heavy-bass-generating inventive sound-making skills. ""Unintentional Tape Manipulations,"" which occurs late in the album, incorporates Earlimart's innovative abilities as it tarts with a high-pitched synth sound, immediately followed by distorted drums, bass, and lyrics. Under all of this noise lies a piano playing a simple, yet important melody. The end culminates in a variety of instruments, which are extremely characteristic of their art.
Perhaps the main reason is so fantastic is the way the band has come into its own and have learned play off one another. They know their musical strengths and have completely harnessed their creative talent throughout the album.
The passion behind singer Aaron Espinoza's wispy, breathy vocales remain stellar and perfectly match his delicate words. His lyrics paired with his voice are so humbling and insightful as he sings, ""Sunday nights / are perfect when they're just / just the two of us."" Espinoza has mastered his songwriting abilities to complement his voice, which makes Earlimart's music so appealing and just plain beautiful.
""Heaven Adores You"" maintains the same feeling of warmth, yet its undertones strangely reveal some sort of melancholy feeling. The song as a whole remains upbeat and provides hope with a great guitar hook. As it continues to unfold, strings and piano are mixed into the melody adding power. After this intensity reaches a climax it leads into, ""808 Crickets,"" a short piano solo pulling the melodic direction back to one that is much more soothing.
The most intriguing song on the album is, perhaps, ""Tell the Truth, Pt. 1 and 2."" Earlimart is able to put together two different songs and mold them into one. The track starts off with soft piano, strings and harmonies. Just when the song seems to be ending the instruments are played backwards, the tempo is pushed forward, and a new song magically emerges. This construction embodies Earlimart's brilliant musicianship.
is the perfect album for the coming of fall, offering reflective moments of the past, yet providing hope, tenderness and comfort when reaching to the future. In essence, the album sums up Earlimart's growth as a band; they push forward to reach a new creative level, but they build off their past techniques.
