Album: All is Wild, All is Silent
Artist: Balmorhea
Released: 2009
Description: The follow-up to their 2008 album, Rivers Arms, the neoclassical rock instrumentalists turn their attention to land and the time when settlers sought to tame it. There are more foundations of folk here than in Rivers Arms and the instrumentalists increased in size as well, giving the album a bigger, fuller sound while still remaining intimate. The music is often soft-spoken and provides you with a sense of gazing over a vast, empty landscape as the sun rises and then sets over the horizon. Many tracks layer instruments and crescendos until great climaxes which wind down into poignant, closing statements of either a single instrument or voice. There are tracks which highlight our small, early victories of the land and its hardship and you can feel that enthusiasm in the notes. This music is great for literary writing and if you want to be transported to mindset of gazing over a beautiful and intimidating blank space that through effort you can shape.
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