bear cove

In summary, this is one of the most vulnerable, heartbreaking albums I’ve listened to. It’s very rare to encapsulate a feeling so visceral as losing a long term love so late into your life so beautifully. The melodies are at times melancholic, sometimes rough, and at other times, simply pleasant to listen to. The sound reflects the rocky relationship’s end and the grief that followed in a way that is brutally honest.

It’s the stages of grief encapsulated in 11 tracks of glorious indie music.

Track 1: Full of Stars

Please forgive me

Starting with the opening track and first three words of the album, you are introduced to the ruminations of Gibbard’s heartbreak. The divorce wasn’t simply black and white written with any villains, but a complicated love where both tried and failed.

Track 2: Punching the Flowers

The second song of the album, Punching the Flowers, felt like the start of the anger in the stage of grief after loss. The punchy guitar and bass are constant as Gibbard describes his voice as the grating sound of a “slamming door”. He ruminates in regret as he posthumously realizes how he took something beautiful for granted.

Track 3: Pep Talk

Pep Talk calmly enters in next with an all too relatable chorus,

And now I find I'm waking up at sunrise, and just lying in bed
Giving myself a pep talk to survive the day lying ahead

It’s the tipping point of depression where all colors blend to black and it’s time to ask for help.

You gotta pull me back.

Track 4: I Built You A Tower (a)

The first part of I Built You A Tower and the appropriately titled album name, as (a) and (b) are the totality of the ruminations from start to end. (a)

Until I couldn’t think of anything else

This line is used for a multitude of feelings throughout the song – at first because it’s the opening of love where you are borderline obsessive and placing this love on a pedestal, then the line is used again as anxiety that something is going to go wrong.

I thought I could keep
Could keep you locked away
That in this soundless spire
Was where you'd always stay

The feeling of trapping your partner without the idea of ever being with anyone else is in a way, a curse. If the relationship breaks, this person is still the only person you think of.

Track 5: Envy the Birds

Another punchy intro to the song with heavy guitar riffs and lyrics describing a shouting match. The instant regret shines as Gibbard’s envy for birds soaring in silence lyric sings over the heavy guitar riffs, gradually easing into a soft melody. A break in the song where there is only the soft melody without any lyrics further emphasizes the mantra that continues through the outro:

Speak without words
No one gets hurt
It's safer where it's quiet

Track 6: Stone Over Water

A song that acutely describes the feeling of brain fog during depression and being totally burnt out. Anger has given out to grief and Gibbard has almost completely folded. 

And how I wish I could say
That I'm immune to the mirror
With temples fading to grey
I'm seeing the end drawing nearer

I can’t imagine a world where I am growing old alone in the world where I thought I’d have my life partner with me the whole way through. This is a devastating, vulnerable song of loneliness where you once knew what it was to not be alone.

Track 7: How Heavenly A State

My favorite guitar riffs of the album are here – loud and indignant. Frustration and anger has returned in the lyrics at the recollection of the ending without the feeling of real closure.

Track 8: Trap Door

A synth beat is the backtrack of the lyrics that describe the memory of how he fell in love and how willing he was to fully pledge into it. But there are no winners in this story – only those that free fall.

There's a trap door in your heart
Where everyone disappears

Track 9: Riptides

Exhaustion arrives as Gibbard again continues to describe being unable to hold it together.

I'm too tired to start, I can't bring you up to speed
There's too many riptides in this ocean to proceed

It's the point of tiredness where it is indescribable. 

Track 9: The Flavor of Metal

It takes just a little faith
But nothing happens every time I pray

Anxiousness has been validated throughout Gibbard’s life. Anytime there is something good – something terrible will follow and it is inevitable. Still, he hopes and hides despite no fruition.

Track 10: I Built You A Tower (b)

A very contrasting song to (a), it is a final angry confessional and rumination to himself and his failed relationship. He is finally learning how to move on, yet still – all his thoughts are of her.

I'm learning how to
Live without you
But these ruminations
Are all about you

It’s maddening, exhausting, and endless.

Overall rating: 5/5