[07.02] Do you know what it feels like to write a review of one of your favorite new albums right after some lady at Zip Zap just gave you a weird haircut and you're about to get on a red-eye flight with a stopover and then meet your sister in boston at noon the next day before driving up to New Hampshire to see your cousin get pulled across the Saco river on a pony cart and get married to a guy who's got a tattoo that says "Old Dawgs Never Die" on his ankle?

Well I do, so maybe you won't have to afterall. And that's a good thing, because now you'll have more lazy afternoons when the dust's floating slowly in the sunshine of your living room to listen to Appleseed Cast's brilliant double-length, Low Level Owl. Or maybe you'll throw it in on one of those long car trips with a friend where no one really says anything for a couple hours—but in a good way—and the both of you get lost in field of thought, while listening to AC's intricate, patient, beautifully-constructed tunes. This is a surprising effort for the band, since they've previously exuded a more emo-ish flavor than this multilayered, swirly, bittersweet nostalgia. Nostalgia's normally a terrible thing, and so that's not what I mean here, so let's stick with bittersweet.

Maybe what I like most about this album is that you feel the band were not only ready to experiment and take risks, but also study and improve the results (many bands forget this part). Not the sort of risks that make you go bow hunting with "the Nuge," but more the type that make you add an ethereal reverse delay in back of a loopy guitar melody, or maybe drop five big, sharp, dramatic snare hits between the intro and the action of a song, or delay everything and then cut through the mist with a sharp, hollow-stomached organ sound. Throughout Low Level Owl (and I do mean "throughout"—the pacing of each disc makes it hard to press stop before you get to the end), there was so much going on, and yet their sound remained uncluttered. Tremendous restraint at work here. They retain a beautiful sparseness to their songs, even when the feeling starts to get lush and overgrown. Overall, it's smoothly beautiful and definitely a grower, once the songs take hold in your ear.

Well now it's time to get in the cab. Did you get it? I hope you got it. —Eliot