Stars Of The Lid ‎– The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid

Almost as great as "And the refinement..." Another masterpiece.

A monumental epic of orchestrated ambience. The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid encompasses all the great things about an ambient record: Long swells of hypnotic drone, the use of silence as an instrument, subtle underlying tonalities, field recordings, and a haunting sparseness that seems to bend time when listened too.

Two discs can barely contain the expansiveness of these sounds, sometimes full and layered while other times so stripped away that one can't help but want them to linger as long as possible.

Stars of the Lid are one of the few artists who somehow become more minimal as they grow. A larger repertoire of instrumentation has in no way crowded these graceful movements and it is in the understanding of these elements that The Lid has been able to design a blueprint to one of the best releases in the last decade.

There is a weight to this music.

Sounds ring out, starting like a symphonic swell, and ending with a twinkle of piano, or perhaps horns? As with previous SOTL releases, it's probably treated guitar, but to the blind listener it sounds like an orchestra reverberating through some vast space.

There must be something going on here between the tones. A sadness, perhaps more palpable than any other release I have heard. How these wordless, melodically sparse (at best!) pieces can transmit such power is astounding, but maybe this is how it should always have been done; cut the bombast, enhance the message.