Miracle Tales - Miracle Tales

Released: December 8 

Miracle Tales is a small album with a large and looming presence that occupies a middle ground between pure ambient music and post-rock. The aura it gives is certainly attributable to post-rock with somewhat sad and remorseful undertones that set an atmosphere of mourning, to borrow a phrase from the artist behind the album, Gilles Vardon. As the album progresses, we get a few different moods with some of the tracks sounding slightly hopeful, others languishing in a morose tone, and some that just sound like a permeating darkness. Of the slightly hopeful variety, "All These Moments" stood out to me because it starts out with gloomy atmospheric pads that define the track for the first few minutes until fading away. We then get the slowly picked guitar with silky yet muted tone playing out a bittersweet melody. It makes for an amazing little moment halfway through the album. 

Both the opening and closing track of the album are interesting choices as the first, "May Floods," plays out almost like a slow funeral dirge for the majority of its runtime with deep pads and organ-like textures evoking images of large cathedrals and gloomy skies. But then, right at the end, these heavy atmospheres subside and a small sound of a guitar playing out quietly takes over. The final track, "Devil Haunting On Stone House," is a sinister sounding end to the album both in name and in musical content. Guitar is present here but it is not so much the gentle tones (though there is a little bit of that). Instead, most of the track is subtly noisy with a the sound of a distorted guitar piercing though. But even with these darkly atmospheres, the track breaks in spots to allow for a clean tone guitar to give a small interlude among the black clouds of sound. Gilles claims this to be a mourning album, but even with the overtones of loss, then are still these beautiful little hopeful moments scattered throughout.