Before I start this "review", and in the nature of what I am about to share with you, I have to be completely honest in telling you that this is extremely difficult for me to write about, for a number of reasons. The first reason is this: I can't listen to this album without crying, at least once. And while that might seem like nothing more than dramatic embellishment, it actually comes down to something quite a bit more personal than that. Something that I have a ton of difficulty coming to terms with, let alone writing about and sharing on the internet: the reason this album is so difficult for me to write about, is because it reminds me of my best friend, who recently passed, and who I miss more than words could possibly convey.
And that is exactly why this all seems so silly and impossible and redundant. Here I am, on a music blog of all places, trying to convey and quantify the value of the best person I've ever known to a bunch of strangers, who most likely came to this blog to discover a new album to listen to, maybe read a few cool metaphors and descriptors along the way to elevate the experience. And maybe that's all this should be. I'll be completely honest when I say that I struggle with some feelings of guilt about even including any of these extremely personal details in a piece of writing that probably should just be about the music. A part of me wonders, "Is this cheap? Does this take value away from a person who's meaning was infinite, to everyone who knew him? To relate his loss to a piece of music?".
But another part of me, the smaller, more timid, yet stubbornly persistent part of me, the voice that carries the echo of my friend Blakely with me everywhere I go, the one that brings me through my hardest days with his gentle, sagely guidance; It tells me that it is O.K to write about these things here. That maybe this is the best place for it. That maybe there is no wrong place, or way to process these feelings. And that maybe, an album that brings me the infinitely valuable gift of connection to someone I miss more than I've ever missed anything, deserves nothing less than my truest, most unflinching honesty. No matter how difficult that might be, for me, and my readers.
So I will say this. I am not writing a review. I'm not sure what I'm writing, but whatever it is, I guess It is exactly what it needs to be. Or more accurately, what I need it to be, at this moment in time. It is about the music of two brothers, Andrew and Michael Tasselmyer of Hotel Neon, a band who's music has brought me stillness and warmth in the times I have needed it most, and who's most recent album under the name of their newest project Gray Acres, has helped me begin to heal.
This is not a review, despite the fact that, at first, that's all this was going to be. I sat down, and resolved to simply describe what I heard. But what I heard... or more accurately what I saw, was so much more. When I closed my eyes, when I allowed myself to truly surrender to what I was experiencing through the music, what I saw was this:
Blake and I, sitting together, on the edge of a cliff that sits over a sea of drifting light. It's just us, on this tiny little patch of land in the middle of an endless expanse of stillness, our legs dangling over the water, the stars reflecting on it like millions of drifting candles. We don't say anything. We don't need to. There is too much, and besides, it all really just comes down to this;
I love you. I miss you.
Thank you Gray Acres, for allowing me to see my friend.