The Evening Descends is immediately recognizable as something bizarre and otherworldly. The 2008 album by the Norman, Okla. band Evangelicals is a complete trip. I continue to be blown away by this record. The first 30 listens in particular were stunning – I couldn’t wrap my head around all of the out-there sounds and wild effects.
It’s an extremely overlooked album of perfect, beautiful pop. With each track, I’m transported to a distinct emotional state. The album’s incredibly powerful single, “Midnight Vignette,” sounds exactly like nighttime, heartbreak and confusion. When listening to this track, I am instantly filled with these feelings and can vividly remember the first time I listened to the record.
Even as I write this at 9 a.m. on my last day as an undergraduate student, with the sun shining through the window blinds, it’s just after midnight in my brain and my stunned, hopeless university freshman-self comes to mind. When I first started listening to this album, I would stay up far later than most sane individuals and engross myself in the far-gone world of The Evening Descends. This is one of those LPs that demands immediate and numerous repeat listens.
For me, The Evening Descends captures the excitement, depression, challenges, elations and bewilderment of freshman year in sound. Alongside the over-the-top aggression of Future of the Left’s Curses, there was no better soundtrack for my first semester all-nighters, and The Evening Descends still cuts to my core, even when the sun is up.
This record is the sound of strange. It’s not that the album is the weirdest, most difficult thing you’ll ever hear – it’s actually quite a welcome listen – it’s that the collages of sounds Evangelicals is able to create are, simply put, mind-blowing. Whether it’s the cartoon-crash effect bumping into minor chord strumming, or what sounds like the screams of hell’s residents backing an achingly beautiful ode to f–ed-up love, Evangelicals achieve a world of sound like nothing else.
In fact, singer-songwriter Josh Jones may have been singing about my relationship with the album on “Skeleton Man”: “When someone loves you very much, you’re f–ed.”
rhiggins@umdbk.com
