파란노을 [Parannoul] - After the Magic

After the Night is my first exposure to two different things, South Korean artist Parannoul, and the genre of shoegaze. I've been aware of many popular albums in the genre, such as loveless and Souvlaki, but I've never listened to anything from this corner of music.

So how was my experience with After the Night? Loved it! The songs were all very noisy, yet easy on the ears at the same time. I don't understand Korean, so the lyrics went in one ear and out the other, but Parannoul's voice is so lovely and fits the instrumentals perfectly. Sometimes his vocals end up getting buried under everything, but it's done in a way that makes it work really well.

The tracklist is consistently great, but the album does begin to sag a little in the middle. The back half starts off a bit weak, but Parannoul pulls through with the last two songs. There are some pretty lengthy songs but they all flew by (possibly due to Swans fucking my perception of time with all those 20-30 minute long tracks).

This album is quite a pretty experience, and listening to it made me feel like I was floating across a bright blue sky. Lovely album, and one of the year's strongest releases.