Album Review: Low Roar Builds Grimm Fairytale With “Once In A Long, Lone While”

Imagine getting lost in a futuristic video game or a colorful dream. In either, you find yourself bouncing around machinated shapes or floating through an endless sky. Oddly enough, we have all had those feelings because we all have visions course through our mind and thus our hearts. Everyone has the “falling” dream; where to trip in our minds makes us kick our legs out. I mention these scenarios, especially in details, because Low Roar’s Once In A Long, Lone While feels like the dreams we have that feels to real when we have them.

Through whimsical arrangements that can make one song feel like three different ones pasted together, Low Roar’s  Once In A Long, Lone While is a sonic fairytale about loneliness; where your are both the damsel in distress and the saving prince. Can we save ourselves is, usually, the question we ask with vast ambiguity but particular sentiments? What does is it mean to “save” ourselves or whether we have a choice to do so seems to be Low Roar’s mental/ sentimental approach in songs “Don’t Be So Serious”, “Give Me An Answer”, and “Miserably”. Whether he is talking to someone else or to himself, is up for grabs, but, often, we find that we tell others what we should be telling ourselves or want to hear. Thus, Low Roar paints a world of self-abandonment that, whether pushed through the leave of others (“Without You” or “Bones”) or just self-loathing (“Gosia”), comes off beautiful. The instrumentals of this album were written with ancient, magical dust as if the Grimm brothers tossed Low Roar their pen and ink. Like the Grimm Fairytales, that are surprisingly dark for the Disney they inspired, Low Roar manages to make worlds appear from the pain of a person.

Vocally, Ryan is like a somber but delicate whisper you can hear in your head both lifting and crashing your spirit. We all know “the mental voice” that can make us feel either invincible or like the most conquerable being in the world. Thus, in between piano melodies that turn the keys of this instrument into fallen leaves and synths that transform into clanking, emotional chains, Low Roar’s voice shines as the epitome of melancholia. Thus, as odd as it it, I recommend Low Roar’s album as a soundtrack to the moments when you are IN your sadness. Sometimes, we need gorgeously, good music to tell us how we feel better than we tell ourselves, and Low Roar describes loneliness in a way that makes it feel natural and, thus, changeable. For More Information On Low Roar And To Buy Once In A Long, Lone While On April 14 Click Here.