As Lean Year, the duo of vocalist Emilie Rex and filmmaker/musician Rick Alverson (Drunk, Spokane) introduced a hushed, haunted sound built from minimalist arrangements of rock and orchestral instruments on their self-titled debut in 2017. The follow-up, Sides, finds them returning both to the studio with Erik Hall (In Tall Buildings), who co-produced Lean Year with Alverson, and to that sound. This time, the material was informed by the loss or illness of multiple close family members, leading to such evocative lyrics as "a foot of live flowers on the hospital floor" ("Bend"), a reference to a hallucination by Rex's mother while recovering from surgery. Somber opening track "Legs" begins the album with a low, humming vibration, gradually adding kalimba, gentle, melancholy vocals (by Rex, who is later shadowed by Alverson), piano, spare guitar, and breathy saxophone (by Elliot Bergman). This commences 35 minutes' worth of what prove to be riveting performances in which every quiet sound has the effect of a mountain or a storm front on the horizon. Written by Alverson the night their dog died, that track's improvised-sounding ending takes place over a continued drone that only releases listeners with five seconds to spare. The album's inspirations and song titles like "Nighttime," "End," and "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" may suggest gloom and doom, but Sides is a work of grace more than sadness, and lighter moods prevail on tracks including the reassuring if softly warped "Bend," and "Panes," whose broad-ranged palette includes high, spectral synth tones, marimba, and booming low drums. Appearing midway through the track list, the latter entry's howling crescendo is a noise peak on an affecting album where breaths and creaks and shifting movements are also part of its lingering atmosphere. ~ Marcy Donelson, Rovi

1		Legs
2		Nitetime
3		End
4		The Trouble With Being Warm
5		Panes
6		Bend
7		Bad Woman
8		Marriage of Heaven and Hell
9		Home

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