Beirut, Gallipoli, Album Review
Beirut
Gallipoli
Album Review
If you know me well, then you should know that when it comes to music, I'm a sucker for the ambient, atmospheric brand. That being said, when I first listened to this album that was suggested to me on Spotify, I was interested straight away.
It was interesting to find that Beirut have been making music for over a decade now and originally begun as a solo project from Santa Fe musician Zach Condon. This latest instalment "Gallipoli" marks their fifth full-length album. However, it serves as my introduction to this intriguing indie-rock/ world music band.
The first thing that comes to mind when I listened to this album was that there was an abundance of grandeur with it, mostly thanks to the use of the trumpets in many of its tracks. And while this element is quite commonplace it seems in the bands discography as a whole, I still digress and give this album props for it. I also believe that it better suits the more melancholy nature of "Gallipoli"
A very good key word that I picked up on in another review on this album is that it has a very "luminous sound". And I find myself agreeing to this strongly as it does ave that very nocturnal atmosphere throughout.
Ive heard some mixed things about this album and in turn, have mixed feelings towards it myself. While I've only dabbled through the earlier works of Beirut since giving "Gallipoli" a listen, I did notice that those albums just had a bit more character in their tracks and much better links to the whole "world music" aspect of Beirut. While this album offers more ambience and a more mature sound, the price to pay is that it does feel a bit dreary and tiresome at times. Nevertheless, this hasn't stopped me from enjoying "Gallipoli", at least for now. But only time will tell where my feelings towards this album end up.
I also feel that the instrumentals that are scattered throughout this album really don't offer much to the record as a whole. Granted I did enjoy the track "Corfu" for a short while, it got very dull, very quickly.
Back to the positives, there are a high number of tracks that I do like such as the title track, "Varieties of Exile", "Family Curse" and "We Never Lived Here". All of these songs have atmosphere in spades. But I find myself gravitating towards "Light in the Atoll" as my favourite track on here as it seems to have the most going on musically and is absolutely gorgeous to listen to.
All in all, I really hope that this album can stand the test of time as I feel it is definitely deserving. Im certainly not ashamed to have this album be my introduction to Beirut and this album has certainly enticed me to listen to more of the bands material.
Thank you for reading.
Booth Boy
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