Angels Of Light Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home CD

Full Title - Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home. The third installment from M. Gira's post-Swans band - quiet, loud, delicate and insane. Digipak. Young God. 2003.

Angels Of Light include: Michael Gira.
Personnel: Michael Gira (vocals, various instruments, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, piano); Thor Harris (vocals, dulcimer, piano, vibraphone, percussion); Larry Mullins (vocals, Farfisa, synthesizer, vibraphone, drums, percussion); Devendra Banhart, Siobhan Duffy (vocals); Christopher Hahn (electric guitar, lap steel guitar); David Coulter (banjo, violin); Kevin O'Connor (banjo); Eszter Balint (violin); David Garland (flute, accordion); Larry Moses (trumpet); Steve Moses (trombone); Joe McGinty (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, keyboards).
Recording information: BC Studios, Brooklyn, NY (03/2002-10/2002); Palace Seizures, Brooklyn, NY (03/2002-10/2002).
Director: DC.
Arranger: DC.
Having created some of the strongest music in his life on the previous Angels of Light album, Michael Gira maintains the winning streak but explores a newer, more controlled delicacy on Everything is Good Here. It's hardly a new move for him, of course, but in ways this album, the third in the Angels of Light guise, finds his extremes of harrowing, wrenching music and performance, and a calmer, almost mystical approach, more integrated than ever before. The drama in his vocals and arrangements are more than ever implicit instead of directly blasting, to beautiful and powerful effect. "Palisades" sets this tone from the start, incorporating everything from backing choirs and dank, dark riffs to the quietest of arrangements into one cohesive performance. Other songs that hit the balance just right include "Nations," with its quiet, persistent vibes part a counterbalance to the more insistent guitars and piano, and the incredible "Sunset Park," with the words delivered as a steady mantra over a surging, slow burn performance that feels like a triumphant march. Gira's gift for ritualistic theatricality certainly hasn't left him, as even a casual listen to the increasingly frenetic "All Souls' Rising" -- keep an ear out for the almost stabbing vocal bursts -- or the even more freaked out "Rose of Los Angeles" show. On the quieter side through and through, "What You Were," with Gira's cracking vocals and piano providing the centerpiece, is the album's hidden treasure, the lyrics of loss, regret, and mystery particularly compelling. Both Gira's core backing musicians, and the many guests throughout, contribute incalculably to the end result, whether it's Larry Mullins' always excellent percussion, or David Coulter's work with everything from violin ("Kosinski") to a children's choir. ~ Ned Raggett
Slouching like a pagan funeral parade towards the genre crossroads between 18th century Appalachian murder ballads and 1970's New York experimentalism comes this third Angels of Light album, a true peak in the vast output of leader Michael Gira. The songs are mature yet monstrous, scary yet heartfelt, sparse yet dense, with hypnotic feedback squalls, primal vocal choruses, strings, guitars, tambourines, chimes, and Gira's rich, deep voice, draping itself over the proceedings like a blanket of poisoned molasses. Tracks balance out between slowly building one-note marches of the damned like "All Souls Rising" and "The Rose of Los Angeles" and quieter moments. "Wedding" opens with a children's choir while the excellent ode to obsessive love, "Kosinski," finds its babbling brook of electric guitar invaded in the second act by Velvet Underground-style violin and rowdy Irish barroom chorus as Gira wails about spying on a woman with beautiful blonde hair. "What Will Come" finds the transcendental anguish reaching its peak with an anguished plea for spiritual deliverance. Like most of Gira's work, this album is fearless in its explorations of the darkened attic heart of man, but this time around he's opened some curtains. In the light oMagnet (4/03, p.82) - "..ANXIETY's shards are intricately arranged....ANXIETY floats on a choppy, satirical undercurrent..."
The Wire (01/04, p.38) - Included in Wire's "50 Records Of The Year [2003]"
The Wire (3/03, p.55) - "...It's a different beast from its two predecessors. It possesses an intensity which brings Michael Gira around full circle..."
Mojo (Publisher) (4/03, p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...EVERYTHING IS GOOD showcases the kind of subterranean folk we might hear bleeding from storm-drains in the post-apocalyptic future..."