Buzzin Music Blog

The Acorn – Glory Hope Mountain - album review

The Acorn, the project of Rolf Klausener, has released their conceptual album Glory Hope Mountain on Bella Union records in the UK.

After five EPs, this is their first full length, and proves to be a successful project for the Canadian band.

After hours of interviews with his mother, Klausener pieced together the story of her life in Honduras and her escape to Canada and transformed it into twelve glorious folk-tinged songs. As weird as the whole project sounds, Klausener pulls it off, continuing the trend of exciting music to come out of Canada in recent times (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade).

Glory Hope Mountain retains the nostalgia I imagine that Klausener’s mother, felt in her recollections, and the use of traditional instruments – ukulele, marimba, banjo – also gives the whole thing a stories-around-the-fire kind of feel. The album is dedicated to her, and the English translation of her name (Gloria Esperenza Montoya) roughly means the album title ‘Glory Hope Mountain’.

Album opener ‘Hold Your Breath’ (about Montoya’s birth) starts softly with Rolf Klausener’s near-falsetto voice, like a more controlled version of Win Butler (Arcade Fire), set against the slowly swelling music arrangement. This song ends with a surge of instruments, and the drumming, rhythmically interesting throughout the album, is pleasingly off-kilter and unconventional.

The music is generally fairly downbeat, ‘The Flood pt. 2’ being the best track in this direction. However,  ‘The Flood pt. 1’ and ‘Crooked Legs’ more obviously recall other Canadian bands like Broken Social Scene, and provide the rare up-tempo moments.

The lyrics are a satisfying mix of clear and obscure. For instance, you know that ‘Crooked Legs’ is about Montoya’s flight from Honduras by “The fireflies fade as the city lights find me”, but at other times lyrics like “Don’t be mad, my name was misgiven…I’ve known glory all my life” on ‘Glory’, the lyrics are elusive enough to make listening an intellectual experience.

One refreshing thing about The Acorn is the composition of the songs. Without the structure typical of the three minute pop song, The Acorn are able interesting and intelligent pieces of music, whilst conveying a unique story. I haven’t heard this done so well since Sufjan Steven’s “Come on, Feel The Illinoise!!”.

Glory Hope Mountain by The Acorn is a must for fans of exciting and challenging folk-influenced music.

Listen to The Acorn by visiting their official Myspace site.