The Daily Spin, December 23
Passion Pit | Gossamer
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite songs from each album right here.
Album: Gossamer (2012)
Artist: Passion Pit
Link:
Three years on from his dynamite full-length debut in Manners, it’s hard to make heads or tails of how exactly I feel about the sophomore offering from Michael Angelakos, Gossamer.
Rarely has such a happy-sounded album exuded such an overwhelmingly anxious vibe, through the lyrics and even through the music, endless walls of sound pushing themselves over you time and time again until you’re basically begging for a breather from it all.
When Angelakos steps away from the impending avalanche of noise, the album is as stellar as he’s been known to be - the obvious shine is with the opening few tracks, but even down-line members like ‘Hideaway’ and ‘Love Is Greed’ fall into these truly beautiful arrangements, sound that evokes what Angelakos is singing about, anxiety and euphoria in one queasy truce, on the knife’s edge before it all slides into oblivion.
Though it’s not my favorite of his works, I think this is Passion Pit at his most creative - so many of his album the things he loves, but to tell his anxieties this way and create an ode to the overwhelming nature of existence - beautifully worked.
Rating: 8.3/10
Best Tracks: Take A Walk; Carried Away; Love Is Greed
Worst Tracks: Cry Like A Ghost