If you purchase one album this year by my recommendation, make it this one. Ravens & Chimes have had what you might call a hard time: their tremendous debut earned comparisons to the Arcade Fire and the attention of Leonard Cohen but didn’t quite make them a buzz band. Or a touring band. Sophomore album Holiday Life became an ordeal, slowed by writer’s block, day jobs, a handful of recording sessions, a label hunt and a second, final mix before its release this April. It is, in short, an urgent, gorgeous album. It reminds me a little of Shearwater, if that band was more dorky and approachable. Frontman Asher Lack’s lyrics are at turns hopeful and desperate, decrying the “so very few hours in the day” before calling out later, “It’s not too late/to be with me again.” Everyone wants a second chance; sometimes it never comes. Let’s not let that happen.
Co-signed. It is gorgeous.






