If you can believe it, there was a time when indie meant something completely different than it does today. There was a time when the term was associated with its origin; that is, of being autonomous, indefinable and generally unpopular. To show the dexterity of the term, consider the fact that a band like Vampire Weekend, still identified as indie, simultaneously sells out huge venues on every leg of their tour, are backed by a hugely successful commercial label and are as musically accessible to trendy teenagers as they are to suburban moms.
But the indie of old never made the Billboard Top 200, indie kids were not the hippest people in school and the music was an outlet not necessarily aimed at pleasing the masses, and usually didn't. Indie was a misunderstood outcast, a precious stone willfully jagged to popular taste. I don't mean to condemn the massive popularity today's indie bands have achieved, as these changes are a simple matter of logistics, the most pertinent of which being the advent of the Internet. The music outgrew the term, but the term itself hangs on like a vestigial trait hinting at an ancient past, a past that Mount Eerie still inhabits today.
Yes, in a world where the indie forces have converged into a climate of hype journalism and monstrously popular summer festivals, Phil Elverum (aka Mount Eerie) remains secluded in some deep wooded area, immersed in nature, contemplating the universe. It does not seem strange then, that Song Islands Volume 2 finds Mount Eerie calling out to the modern era with a quiet request to return to simplicity.
In ""Don't Smoke,"" a catchy tune that could pass as a lo-fi reworking of a track found on Weezer's Blue Album, Elverum asks, ""Where is the rebellion in acting like a fuck-up? / Why not embrace good health?"" On perhaps the most fully realized track on the album, ""A Sentimental Song,"" a haunting ballad from which proceeds a series of rhetorical questions aimed at inciting self-awareness in the 21st century computer-dependent teenager, Elverum asks, ""When was the last time you drew a picture? / When was the last time you swam in a pond? / When was the last time you told a lie?"" Such questions might sound obvious, overtly didactic and far from profound, but delivered over the coarse melodic humming of organs and the emotionally nuanced monotone of Elverum's vocal delivery, these questions dive deep.
Juxtaposed with such successes are the album's many lesser attempts, however. ""Get Off the Internet"" puts forth a similar plea as that of ""Don't Smoke,"" as Elverum urges us to ""Get off the Internet … take out the garbage … open the windows … and shut up about music."" Such messages might be useful for our slovenly era, but the song itself is lazy and haphazard, rehashing a vocal melody that could easily pass for a commercial religious hymn.
But such shortcomings should not come as any sort of surprise. As is customary with any b-side album—and especially one as robust as Song Islands Volume 2, which contains 31 tracks spanning nearly eighty minutes—not all of these songs are keepers. While gems like the delightfully self-aware ""Where?"" or the nostalgic tugging of ""A Sentimental Song"" are interspersed, these fully formed entities exist amidst a slew of shades and undeveloped ideas. I might recommend this album to longtime listeners of Phil Elverum, but new listeners ought seek out his earlier, fully realized material before listening to this brainstorm. After all, Mount Eerie is a dense forest, a separate world, and it's best to get acclimated before stepping in.
