Mae's The Everglow begins with a pleasant-sounding girl speaking over a musical bed of a repetitive piano melody, giving an instructional introduction on how to listen to the CD. She begins, "Hello, and welcome to The Everglow by Mae. You are now listening to the audio portion of the album. To complete your experience, please open the booklet that accompanies the compact disc. Good, you are now ready to experience The Everglow." Unsure if this is tongue in cheek humor or a pretentious introduction, I assume it's the latter, and think to myself that this better be one of the best albums I've ever heard to deserve that sort of opening.
Well, they shut me up.
The Everglow is nearly perfectly constructed from start to finish, a collection of catchy choruses and great riffs that seems to get better every time you listen to it. It blows away its predecessor, Destination: Beautiful, which meandered at many points and was often dull and uninspired, although the debut did have a few moments of brilliance. They sounded much like The Juliana Theory or Sense Field back in their heyday, but not much more than that. This album's moments of brilliance occur much more often, and for longer periods of time. After the introduction, the second track "We're So Far Away" begins the music with one of the most gorgeous piano ballads I've ever heard, leading into "Someone Else's Arms," a barrage of edgy guitar riffs and a never-ending chorus that begs to be sung along to at high volumes (although I recommend doing this in the comfort of your car or house, not while walking down a busy street while listening to your iPod). The two other biggest highlights are near the end of the album, the beautiful melodies of "Ready and Waiting To Fall" and "Anything" are fairly straight-forward musically but have such amazing lyrics and a catchy sound it doesn't matter. The chorus of "Ready and Waiting To Fall" in particular ("I could feel something different from the first time, heaven made sense and all the words rhymed") is poetry in song that doesn't come along very often.
That isn't to say that the middle of the album doesn't beg to be listened to over and over again as well. Other great songs include the piano-tinged rocker "Painless," the ballad "The Ocean," and the title track. There is nothing that could be classified as bad, and even mediocre seems a label too severe for anything on The Everglow. There isn't much else to say -- this is one of the best albums of the year without a doubt, and instead of reading this, you should be on your way to go buy it right now.
4/4
Other coverage for this album
HM Magazine #114Reviewed by Jamie Lee RakeOn their sophomore longplayer, Mae transmutes emo’s romantic and fatalistic impulses into..a concept album? Yeah, or they just happen to have had a bunch of songs that worked well in a cyclical fashion and had a visual artist whup up some illustrations appropriate for a quite mature children’s book. In actuality, The Everglow is a triumph of thematic and structural ambition wed to heart-on-sleeve…The Phantom Tollbooth 2005Reviewed by Jonathan AvantsThe Everglow follows the journey of a scruffy emo-lad through a storybook world. Donning a pilot-hat and toting his travel briefcase, he traverses oceans by riding atop friendly whales, finds companionship while walking in a wide candlelit field, trudges through nightmarish forests full of sinking mud pits, and faces crossroads with faded street names in an effort to reach his destination -- The…Similar sounding releases
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