WAKE:SLEEP

A Lily is James Vella, a member of the post-rock band Yndi Halda. While Yndi Halda takes on the cinematic side of the genre with crashing climaxes and all, A Lily takes a more subtle approach mixing elements of electronica, ambient, drone, post-rock and even a hint of folk into a wagon of emotions and melancholy.

This is one of those albums that by looking at the cover art you'll know what you're getting into. It has a soft and warm atmosphere crafted by various instruments such as acoustic guitars, piano, glockenspiel and many others. All of them which create a captivating and delicate album. The songs here have little dynamics in volume so it's a nice album to listen as background and forget about it, but then you'll be missing the point of it (and the beauty of it too). If you pay too much attention to it then you'll get lost in its youthful and almost toy-like sounds. The perfect blend of influences in A Lily is simply splendid. Even though the more prominent style may be electronica, the other styles in the album are mixed in a way that it sounds refreshing and new. All the songs are great in their own right and except one...

The song that kills the album for me is sadly the 33 minute drone called "The Shipwreck". The said song is too long for its own good. All the songs up to it is so full and rich in sound that it in the end "The Shipwreck" sounds out of place. The song before it, "Arms Around Sleep", its just drone like "The Shipwreck", but the difference is that it's much more interesting and engaging. It has more variety in its 10 minutes than the next 33 minutes. It's not a problem of not enjoying drone music either since there are other artists making this style of music and end up being more interesting than this. And the sad part of all of this is that an album with so much good things working for it takes a devastating blow.

It truly saddens me to see such a great album take a plunge after 40 minutes of great music and its even sadder for me to give it such a low rating. A beautiful album with a great atmosphere. Excellent for late-night listening and to get lost in it IF you don't mind skipping 30 minutes of the album. In my honest opinion the album should've ended in "Arms Around Sleep" and you'll still have 40 or so minutes of great music. If you can forgive the album for what it did then feel free to give A Lily a chance (I couldn't), but proceed at your own risk.

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