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Jul 8, 2015Sauna opens with the hissing and crackling of a steam room, and things get Benji-er from there.
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MojoApr 22, 2015Sauna becomes a transitional journey of self-surrender, Elverum's soft-sung imagist perceptions slowly reaching toward a quiet, meditative transcendence. [May 2015, p.96]
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MagnetFeb 20, 2015This is the first time since 2003 that Elverum fully succeeds in casting a meditative spell strong enough to suck everyone listing into its singular IRL riptide. [No. 117, p.57]
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Feb 20, 2015When it's as gloriously complex, grandiose and naturally magnificent as what he's presented on Sauna and the couplet of albums that preceded it, you can entirely empathise.
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Feb 19, 2015No song on Sauna is going to make you sweat but every one will relax you and coax you into letting your worries seep on out of you. Like all his work, this record is a peaceful exorcism.
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Feb 6, 2015The about-faces make for an engaging, challenging listen, but by the end it all seems a bit vague.
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Feb 6, 2015Many of Sauna’s strongest moments result from Elverum sticking to what he knows best, as well as being the most closely akin to his last two albums.
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Feb 4, 2015As always, that mystery resides in the sounds he manipulates. No one else sounds like Phil Elverum.
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Feb 4, 2015Superficially, Sauna is possibly the easiest, most accessible way into Elverum’s world he has released since he ditched The Microphones moniker, yet the concepts and themes explored remain undiluted, and the album’s complexities have as much to give as you are willing to work to take away.
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UncutFeb 3, 2015In his communions with nature, Elverum continues the American tradition of Whitman, Thoreau or Emerson, immersing himself in hymns to the land. [Mar 2015, p.78]
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Feb 3, 2015Sauna can be disorienting at times, too, but, more to the point, it has a peculiar way of making you feel like you’re listening to two overlapping albums that follow perpendicular impulses.
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Feb 3, 2015On Sauna, Elverum’s attempts to mimic heavy metal rock ballads, Tim Hecker, and certain so-called “holy” and unholy minimalists alike, feel inconsequential and compositionally uninteresting. That’s not to say that every citation falls flat.
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Feb 3, 2015He made sure Sauna is a trudge through comfort, discomfort, fear, and acceptance, a completed revolution that leaves us flat on our backs squinting to make out what’s on the other side of this boiling steam.
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Feb 3, 2015This hodgepodge of ideas, irregular pacing and abrupt transitions are oddly compelling; though it can be tough to make it to the end of the hour-long work, Elverum makes it worth it.
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Feb 3, 2015Vast yet intimate, in some ways Sauna is the most like the Microphones album that gave Mount Eerie its name in the first place.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 23
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Mixed: 5 out of 23
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Negative: 0 out of 23
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Nov 29, 2021As always, that mystery resides in the sounds he manipulates. No one else sounds like Phil Elverum
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Feb 8, 2015