This band is called The Microphones, but the only member is in fact Phil Elverum. After the poppy “It Was Hot We Stayed in the Water”, the ‘band’ decided to do a follow-up to the album’s center piece “The Glow” in the format of an album. So in 2001 was released “The Glow Pt. 2″, an hour long record with a big elephant on the cover. But behind this elephant lies beautiful lo-fi experimental music and some of the finest music in the last decade.

“The Glow Pt. 2″ is a trip, the kind of album that takes you into it’s universe with the first song and bring you through a trip and a plethora of emotions. This album pretty much sums it all, having some really calm acoustic-ridden songs to more stressful ones with heavy drums; yet most of the album keeps a certain vibe, thanks to Phil Elverum’s vocals. Throughout the whole album, Phil’s voice guides us in a huge trip through a beautiful and peaceful world. To help those vocals, he’s also a great songwriter and he shows it especially on my favorite song from the album, the title track. “The Glow Pt. 2″ steals the show early (being the second song) and although most of the following songs are different and really good songs, none seems to bring the same intensity of emotion as this one, with his great lyrics, emotional vocals and beautiful production.

The production is one of the album’s strongest aspect. Having a couple instrumental songs to make a transition between certain songs or build up the mood before another song, the production is just as interesting (or sometime even more) than Phil’s vocals. “The Glow Pt. 2″ is one of this decade’s essential, whether is because of it’s musical complexity, moving vocals, great lyrics or simply because of how good the music is. This album is considered by many to be the group’s best and even if I never heard all of them I would totally understand that Phil probably never released an album as great as this one simply because of how good it is.

by Jean-Guy