Morose
On The Back Of Each Day

When I finally managed to get my hands on "On The Back Of Each Day" by our very own Morose (after a long wait due to poor distribution), I knew I had something strange in my hands, uncategorizable (from a purely musical point of view), but I was captivated as I hadn't been in a long time, right from the cover, the artwork, that kitty, and those two sculptures embraced in contemplative ecstasy. Then I insert it into the player, press play, and for about fifty minutes, I am immersed in a separate world, in a magical and suspended atmosphere.

Strangely gloomy, yet reassuring, hazy, foggy, in black and white, crossed by spectral sounds that emerge from nowhere and vanish into nothingness, cries of wind instruments, barely plucked guitars, a bouncing and hypnotic piano, and a voice that bewitches you, slow, inexorable, that pronounces every word carefully. All this is only a part of the images that this album has managed to bring to my mind. Childhood memories, small fears, scenes from a beloved video game came to mind (indeed, at certain moments of a track, the main harmonic line took me directly back to Final Fantasy 7 and those first dates between Cloud and Tifa: those who've played it know what I'm talking about); and then again wet streets, raindrops sliding placidly on a car window, the steam rising from a cup of hot tea while snow falls outside. Silly associations of ideas, as subjective as can be, yet this is the strength of this album.

Morose doesn't aim to please immediately, they choose their listeners, and perhaps that's why they conquer. They guarantee you disappointments and discontent ("We Guarantee Disappointment"), through a noisy and rattling beginning that blends into a subdued chant made of bells, whispers, with an acoustic guitar riff that seems never to end.

With the same placid calm with which they disappointed us, they narrate how the end can have a beginning ("Beginning Of The End"): we feel transported into a sepia slide, lulled by an almost post-rock crescendo, which also bears the mark of a certain apocalyptic folk songwriting and the chants of Black Heart Procession.

You suddenly find yourself dancing in the rain ("Rain Dance"), only to startle at the sound of liquid trumpets and then let yourself go into the warm yet disturbing atmosphere of "Foie De Dinde", a track that, little by little, unveils its extraordinary beauty, like a Venus that, just for you, unveils herself, whose smooth white body reflects the rays of the sun that, with difficulty, emerges from the clouds before setting.

The other side of an ordinary day, where you can meet your deepest self, where you can face, with eyes closed ("The Eyes Closed"), every worry of yours, without being, ultimately, scratched too much by problems.

An out-of-tune gramophone, as if immersed in a pond of water ("Drowned Gramophone") brings back memories of your childhood, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales ("Jurodivyi"), cradling and embracing you before melting you into warm touched tears ("Blessing In Disguise"), a perfect and consoling closure for an album that is truly wonderful, if only for its evocative power.

Do not expect a one-listen-and-go work, do not seek something easily catchy in "On The Back Of Each Day". If you approach it with this idea, you will burn it and miss out on the uniqueness it has to offer. Enjoy it slowly, savor it, drown in it, emerge from it and then save it for when you'll need it again. For when everything around seems to be going wrong, for when, once again, you feel more sheltered on the other side of a day born crooked.