After the first few listens of Evermore, I had a conversation with a friend and agreed it felt like a bunch of B-sides to Folklore… The delicate hooks weren’t there. It felt all over the place.
Then, after diving in and accepting the challenge of the album, and it is challenging, I changed my tune. It is on par and in some ways better than Folklore. But this isn’t about ranking. It truly is a sister album. The more adventurous sister that sees things with a bit more of a forlorn worldview
Trust me, there are songs I skip. I think the album could have used a bit of editing. I jump past No Body, No Crime (with HAIM), Dorothea, and Coney Island with the National).
Everything else is sublime.
Favorites include Cowboy Like Me, Gold Rush, Happiness and Marjorie. The latter is about her grandma. It’s the companion song to the song about her Grandpa (Epiphany). I recommend the lyric video with images of her grandma, an opera singer, which has a bit of her vocal ghosted at the end:
Overall? I feel like this album takes more work to vibe, but once you do, you find new ways to emphasize.
It’s a dark and wintry album, with themes that tend to swirl around different approaches to loss.
If you liked Folklore, don’t be afraid to skip some songs and give it some rotation.