A Crow Looked at Me

Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me
Critic Score
Based on 20 reviews
2017 Ratings: #4 / 940
Year End Rank: #12
User Score
2017 Rank: #1All Time: #121
Liked by 638 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Tiny Mix Tapes
The specifics of its sounds and details of its creation feel as irrelevant and unimportant as any “review” of it (which is why the rating above means absolutely nothing). This isn’t just an album about death. It’s an album that lives death.
100
PopMatters
And yet this collection of songs exists, released to the world as a declaration of love, and informing the listener about the circumstances of love and loss between Elverum and his late wife Geneviève Castrée Elverum and their baby daughter.
100
AllMusic

Sharing his loss on A Crow Looked at Me doesn't diminish its impact at all -- even within Mount Eerie's body of work, this is a remarkably powerful and pure album.

93
GIGsoup

‘A Crow Looked at Me’ is a showcase of weakness and cruel reality, prose of lost love, and perhaps the saddest album ever made, and a statement of that magnitude still feels like a disservice.

92
Paste

They are beautifully and simply arranged, but it is not an entertaining album to listen to in any conventional sense, nor can it be shaken off easily. It is, however, the kind of album that makes all others seem frivolous while you’re hearing it.

91
A.V. Club

Pain is the crux of Elverum’s career, and without resorting to any of his brutally stark instrumentation, he offers his most sobering full-length to date, and likely of all time.

91
Consequence of Sound

Overwhelming and humbling, Elverum’s revelatory work offers a blueprint for others going through similar situations in their own lives, a true testament to the power of art and a loving tribute to Geneviève.

90
The Sydney Morning Herald
Elverum instils each song with its own elegant atmosphere and fragile flourishes, giving the sense of eavesdropping on his most personal thoughts. The effect is crushingly sad, authentic and does what great art should – remind us of the value of our world and the people we share it with daily.
90
Pitchfork
So simple, so tactile, so deceptively real are these songs. Their cumulative effect is that they become wobbly with metaphor, forcing the listener into the kind of magical thinking that transforms everything in the living world into a sign of the dead, only to snap back into a reality that for better and worse means nothing.
90
Uncut
Overwhelming and beautiful.
90
Exclaim!

This record possesses immense power to make listeners reflect on their own relationships and mortality. A Crow Looked at Me is a grim memento of the grand injustice of losing those most precious to us.

90
The 405
How many albums can you name that truly take something away from you by the time they cease? It may not be one you play often, but it's also one you will never forget.
90
No Ripcord

Even if Elverum is reluctant to label it as such, A Crow Looked at Me is what all art should aspire to be: honest, affecting, and unforgettable.

85
Spectrum Culture

With A Crow Looked At Me, Elverum has created a work that deals with death, loss and the myriad accompanying emotions in a starkly sobering manner that ultimately proves highly affecting and, most importantly, incredibly real.

83
Pretty Much Amazing

For anyone who was ever remotely interested in Mount Eerie or the Microphones, A Crow Looked at Me is a must-listen. But it feels made for a very specific time and place, and the subject matter is tough to stomach and tougher to shake. It’s bleak, but without any of the life-affirming notes you might expect from an album like this.

80
Sputnikmusic

A Crow Looked At Me is as pure an elegy as you might ever hear, and you’re better off not listening.

80
Mojo
Painfully literal in its detailing of grief.
80
NOW Magazine

A Crow Looked At Me is an unsettling, awkward listen and it might (probably will) make you cry. It’s also a tribute to an amazing 13-year love story and may turn out to be one of the strongest albums of the year.

80
Under the Radar
With his new album, Elverum managed to put this experience into words to be sung, and the results offer intensely moving chapters of his coping and survival.
WhatTheFunk
79

My longest review...

You who are going to read this review, allow me to take you as this album has put me down and gradually suffocated me in its inevitable reality. I won't force you to undergo the same treatment, I just need someone with whom I will have the illusion of being able to talk. I don't want to write alone on... this thing. Don't let me face it alone.

I'll start by telling you the context. That's reassuring, the context is fixed, it's objective. In February 2015, Geneviève ... read more

zachthesnack
100

OH MY GOD I CAN'T STOP CRYING

I hope one day I have a love for someone as strong as this.

EMR
69

P. Elverum´s recent learning-process about dealing with the death of a beloved-one is at full exposure on his new LP as Mount Eerie, A Crow Looked at Me (an incredibly suitable title at that). Here, the famous singer/songwriter takes the most bare tools at his disposal and crafts a last requiem for his deceased wife, seemingly hopeful she will look at him from the skies and receive his most honest message.

Anyone going into this album might be surprised by the sheer open-hearted quality ... read more

hwkn
NR

More poetry than music. Beautiful, and miserable. For the most part how this sounds does not appeal to me, the writing is what makes this gripping. 'Soria Moria' is incredible, and serving as a turning point with Phil finally addressing his daughter instead of his wife in the final track 'Crow' makes for such an impactful ending. I do not plan on returning to this.

Jarek
80

the lyrical content is very emotional; heartbreaking.

sadly, the performance is lacking a bit.

Kxstiel
99

I really don’t have words.

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Track List

1Real Death
2:27
95
2Seaweed
3:01
95
3Ravens
6:39
97
4Forest Fire
4:15
94
5Swims
4:07
95
6My Chasm
2:22
94
7When I Take Out the Garbage at Night
2:25
92
8Emptiness, Pt. 2
3:28
93
9Toothbrush / Trash
3:52
96
10Soria Moria
6:33
96
11Crow
2:21
95
Total Length: 41 minutes
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Added on: January 25, 2017