how we dig in the earth
A Place for Owls
‘how we dig in the earth’
Release Date: Friday 11/1
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
“Review”: See below
I won’t “review” this album. Or try to describe the vast array of musical textures it boasts. Or itemize all the specific songs and lyrical passages that blew me away. Or give it a number of “stars” out of 5. (Just kidding, I will always give every album and movie a number of stars out of 5. It’s how my mind works.)
Instead, I’m simply going to tell you how I feel about Denver emo band A Place for Owls and their 2nd studio album, ‘how we dig in the earth.’
A Place for Owls is a ridiculously likable band that is ridiculously well-worth following online. So first and foremost, find them on the socials and follow them. Their music evokes (for me) hints of Manchester Orchestra, Bright Eyes, Pilot Speed, and The Weakerthans — while entirely embodying their own singular emo-rock brand.
Their lyrics, largely courtesy of lead singer Ben Sooy, are achingly effective & affecting. Vivid and vulnerable. Melancholy but warmly aspirational. Like diary entries from someone who writes the most crisp, earnest, hauntingly self-aware prose you’ve ever read. Blood, sweat, and tears spilled onto the page. Which would be a gross mishmash of fluids, right? But it’s also somehow refreshingly clean. It’s a beautiful mess of crisply conveyed emotional truths.
“find your friends and hold them close.” That’s one of the song titles, and it’s also an ethos to live by. A Place for Owls is nothing if not a band with an ethos — humane, humanistic, humanizing. Listen to these guys sing a dozen songs, and you’re likely to be reminded a dozen times of why life is deeply worth living. Even while becoming reacquainted with the grief innate to our mortal species.
The opening song, “go on,” is sad and wounded and direct, featuring all of 11 distinct words.
go on and say… go on and say it all
you’re not okay… you’re not okay at all
If I had heard this song last July, in the midst of pulverizing depression, I might have reached out sooner for the help I needed. And I have no doubt that someone will find the song who needs help. This album can and will help someone, somewhere, seek emotional support from friends and mental health assistance from medical professionals. It’s bruisingly honest about the brutal slog that is being a human being burdened with a sensitive consciousness in a radiant but grief-laden world.
A Place for Owls, as much as any band I’ve encountered, writes the kind of songs that can and very likely will function as life preservers for mental health strugglers and stragglers. This is music you can feel, deep in the marrow of your bones. Music to make you profoundly grateful to be alive, even as it acknowledges the haunting fact that sometimes life makes us want to die.
Or take this passage from “help me let the right ones in,” which speaks volumes far more concisely than a wordy guy like me could ever put it:
deep inside your chest
are all the people that you've been
did you find your rest
did you let the right ones in
“All the people that I’ve been.” I could spend the entire day pondering that.
‘how we dig in the earth’ is one of the very best emo-rock albums I’ve ever heard. Right up there near the uppermost emo echelon: ‘Clarity’ by Jimmy Eat World, Moving Mountains’ self-titled final album, and ‘Harmlessness’ by The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die.
It’s only the 2nd full-length studio album A Place for Owls has released, and based on those 2 albums their future is as bright as a sunset over the Denver skyline. (I can attest to that because I lived in Colorado for 9 years.)
I will be in the front row with a foam finger, rooting hard for them to hit it big. Or at least — in this world where extraordinary bands are often never fully discovered — watching and listening deeply as their discography unfolds.
Sometimes with a tear in my eye.
Always with a broken, beaming smile.
A Place for Owls makes music that demands both.