“Own Stunts”
from the album Magic Central
2010
iTunes
Michigan-based trio Breathe Owl Breathe return with a signature deep-forest sound in their fourth album, the delightful Magic Central.
Written and recorded in the band’s log cabin, located deep within the northern Michigan woods, Magic Central finds the band further tightening and maturing their sound, resulting in their most solid and focused album to date.
For those uninitiated, Breathe Owl Breathe plays, for the most part, quiet, reflective folk music, managing somehow to distill much of their home state’s charm and beauty into song form. Their playful and innocent approach to songwriting has always lent the band a lot of charm, making them quite accessible.
Magic Central finds the band with just as much charm as ever, but also a newfound maturity adding a lot of depth to many of the songs. “Breathe In,” the band’s second record, was a wistful and playful collection of quiet folk songs.
Magic Central has plenty of these types of songs, but also features songs that deal with love, loss and insecurity, resulting in an interesting contrast.
One of the album’s highlights, “Dragon,” exemplifies this contrast quite well. On its surface, “Dragon” is a silly fable about a dragon and a princess who are pen pals. What the fable thinly veils is the story of a relationship, one plagued by insecurity and adversity from outside forces.
The song’s chorus, which simply repeats, “How do you stop loving someone?” seems almost out of place on first listen, considering the context the song establishes in its opening monologue. However, once the listener realizes that it isn’t actually a story about a dragon and a princess, the chorus really begins to pack a heavy emotional punch.
Magic Central isn’t all heartbreak and loss, though. “Dogwalkers of the New Age,” another one of the album’s highlights, is mostly about what the song suggests: a nighttime walk around a city that’s “alive.”
Musically, the song is a perfect soundtrack for nocturnal wandering. A driving, shuffling beat, a lonely acoustic guitar riff, perfectly place cello lines and some delightful vocal interplay between Micah Middaugh and Andréa Moreno-Beals set the mood for a late-night walk with a loved one.
Established Breathe Owl Breathe fans (and anyone who’s seen the band live in the past year) will be pleased with the record and the uninitiated couldn’t pick a better time to join in.