Departure Songs, by Hammock

Departure Songs by Hammock, released 02 October 2012 1. Cold Front 2. Ten Thousand Years Won't Save Your Life 3. Together Alone 4. Artificial Paradises 5. Tonight We Burn Like Stars That Never Die 6. Pathos 7. Awakened, He Heard Only Silence 8. Words You Said... I'll Never Forget You Now 9. Tape Recorder 10. Frailty (For the Dearly Departed) 11. Dark Circles 12. (Let's Kiss) While All the Stars Are Falling Down 13. All Is Dream and Everything Is Real 14. Mute Angels 15. Hiding But Nobody Missed You 16. We Could Die Chasing This Feeling 17. Glossolalia 18. (Leaving) The House Where We Grew Up 19. Tornado Warning Departure Songs is Hammock's fifth LP and first double album. It was mixed by Tim Powles (The Church), mastered by Taylor Deupree (solo artist and 12K) and features contributions by Keith Kenniff (Helios, Goldmund). Hammock go massive as they meditate on grand themes of death and loss, their music ever larger, more expansive. Every song a mountaintop vista with a clear view to the horizon, unencumbered by clouds, in all directions. Departure Songs demands that it be played loudly so that the details in each track can breathe, whether it is the androgynous, falsetto vocals of Marc Byrd or the angelic voice of Christine Glass Byrd or just a little bit of guitar in the background, this record is nuanced in a most compelling fashion. The arrangements beg to be picked apart - soaring guitars, propulsive bass, and hypnotic strings. The vocals work wonderfully as an instrument, but when the words finally become understandable, they cause shivers. Departure Songs is an album about being there and not being there. And how it feels to both be there and have someone else not be there. Presence and absence. Love and grief. Hammock’s music has always been a balm for troubled hearts in troubled times - and here the troubled times are their own. This is intensely personal music, and we are lucky that Hammock will let us listen in. Not as fragile as previous efforts, Departure Songs shows a more mature songwriting, more assured production, a fuller approach to crafting music. Hammock retains its signature approach to epic music-making, but this time out, herald their muse in all capital letters, with cinematic crescendos and an architect’s ear for structure both within a song and as a sequence of songs. The quiet, more ambient tracks act as both underline and counterbalance to the bigger tracks. Hammock’s greatest success as musicians is to make music that is, at its heart, completely the saddest music ever made but expressed in a manner that is ecstatic. This is what makes Hammock special - ecstasy through exquisite sadness. Epiphany. - Words by James Mason