The Avalanches- We Will Always Love You

      The new Avalanches project is more of a vibe then any of their previous albums. It’s a very atmospheric listen filled with vintage production, haunting recorded messages  from beyond the grave and an impressive number of guests that manage to perfectly fit into the world The Avalanches have created on this record.

     After hearing the singles I was a little worried that inviting so many collaborators onto the record would really hurt the unique sound of The Avalanches. Luckily, at least for the first half of the record, it still didn't feel like things have changed that much. We Will Always Love You, The Divine Chord and Interstellar Love all have stunning, lush instrumentation, production that sound a little lo-fi and extremally detailed at the same time. I don't think any current artist manages to achieve that vintage esthetic as successfully as The Avalanches. There's plenty of interludes between those songs but none feel like filler. The mood is so consistent throughout the record that each transitional moment can serve as an outro to a proceeding song as well as build up to the one that follows. Biggest highlights for me have to be Gold Sky (having Kurt Vile on this cut was a nice change of pace) and We Go On, it's colorful production gave me a slight Superoorganism vibe.  Sadly when we get deeper into the track list there are a few missteps. Most of the time guests play into the records esthetic but Jamie XX and Denzel Curry overtake the tracks they are featured on, making them feel out of place. Also, as catchy as Running Red Lights is, Rivers completely loses me on the outro, I fail to understand what "California life" has to do with anything the track is about. I really appreciate the incorporation of some lyrics from the Purple Mountains record into the song though, despite how unnecessary it seems to bring Karen O onto the album just so she can recite a few lines from a different song for 30 seconds. Especially after those same lyrics are brought up again, it's just the one interlude that could have been cut. Still, there's not many moments on the record I have any issues with. It's especially impressive considering it's over an hour long.

      Despite some weaker tracks on the second part of the album, We Will Always Love You is among the most consistent and unique releases of 2020. The Avalanches took a huge risk with this album and it definitely paid off.

RATING: 8/10