Dreary, melancholy, hazy, Liz Harris carries this song along with only a simple piano melody backing her up. The heaving gravity of her lyrics weighs heavy down on the piano keys and on her spirits as she slowly makes her way through the track. This sparse song limits itself without the accompaniment of other instruments or harmonies to change its feel. An overwhelming aura of gloom glazes from start to finish.
Put out recently on Kranky Records, Grouper’s ethereal and poignant songs like “Call Across Rooms” create her most recent album, Ruins, which was released in late October. Having never heard much by her personally, I always appreciate an artist whose stylistic sense of music is apparent from the very first song of theirs you hear. To me, it can be a sad when a favorite artist completely changes his or her sound, but Grouper is not an artist to stray far from her roots. “Call Across Rooms” emotes the same sentiment as many of her other songs, and I really respect that.