eLxAr - When The Midnight Whispers Its Stories
Review by Karl Magi
Overall Album Impressions
eLxAr’s “When The Midnight Whispers Its Stories” is a galvanizing journey through the night, painting pictures of long roads, starlight spilling across a desert night and a journey through complex emotion into resolution and light. An instrumental portrait is painted by this album, outlined in neon tones and moonlight. The way in which melody, harmony and a synth tapestry combine results in compelling emotional depth and first-rate musical storytelling. Sometimes music alone can weave a spell and tell a story with directness and clarity.
The story arc is a major part of “When The Midnight Whispers Its Stories.” Luca Leonardi draws us along with the story he tells, allowing all of the musical elements to narrate. I find myself pulled into a world of imagination, my mind’s eye creating vignettes as the storyline unfolds. A series of pictures, drawn by sensitive synth choices, skillful composition and cohesive emotion, makes this work impressive and enjoyable. Each different element is allowed to work to its best ability and results in an emotional adventure across midnight blacktop.
As emotion is at the heart of “When The Midnight Whispers Its Stories,” melody becomes important. Luca Leonardi crafts melodic lines which reach out to express emotion and paint vivid imagery. Each melody advances the storytelling and elucidates a part of the message being conveyed. All of the imagined landscapes are brought to vibrant life by the compositions and given weight and depth by harmonic balance. At the end of the day, this is music that grips and compels, carrying one along on a musical tide.
Images rise and resolve throughout the music, in one of the strongest parts of “When The Midnight Whispers Its Stories.” The tale of driving through the night, looking out across desolate landscapes and feeling love and loss come together is central to the album’s appeal. It is impressive when someone can draw out feeling and imagery with only instrumental tools and that definitely happens here.
My Favourite Tracks Reviewed
“Edge of Midnight” bathes in mournful darkness as razor-sharp edges vibrate. Sweeping to life, a rhythmic throb underpins the fragility above it, brushing with tentative touches. A broken brightness shatters on the edges of the shadow while faraway train sounds move with mechanical sensations.
Insistence permeates the giant bassline as a melody, like the exhalations of dreamers, shines out from a floating synth. An onrushing mixture of thoughtful emotion and hurting tenderness fills me as the music suffuses my senses. Breath sweeps as computerized tones expand and contract, while widely levitating notes glimmer above cloudy gusts.
Like a steadily undulating tide, opalescent patterns filigree the illuminating synth, like dreams waiting on the cusp of sleep. Delicacy splashes from tiny notes, sparkling from a slipping synth while drums add irresistible weight. In a single moment of hovering tenderness, the track falls into nighttime sound and silence.
Unbelievable weight creates impressions of growing energy while chords like spotlights flare to guide “Tunnel To The Realm Of Midnight” into life. Drifting into space, a sudden percussive throbbing grasps the low end and presses it into action. Like fragile pearlescent fragments, a synth leaps out as undulations swirl around it.
A feeling of spinning through space, dropping into a portal which leads one to a new place, flows from the noble tones which add effulgence as they burn softly. Never-ending action animates the leaping arpeggios, filling me with images of rushing into new realms with adventurous fascination. A roaring engine combines with levitating notes briefly as exhalations float with majesty.
Insistent pounding increases from the drums as notes grow into melodic patterns which paint pictures of a broadly spreading vista lit by pale moonlight. Mournful emotion is shot through with affection as the urgent beat continues to punch. Coming to an end, the sound of a roaring motor and the endless undulations open the door to the next chapter of the journey.
“Lights At The Edge of the Road” forms shadowed imagery above ticking, rhythmic drums. Fragility flickers from ghostly lights swelling from the midnight road, like half-seen impressions lingering. An atmosphere of anticipation tinged with dreaming melancholy permeates the track, with delicate bells shining like will-o’-wisps.
Ethereal mist swells before a steady, loping rhythm creates active motion and an ear-pleasing contrast to me. Affection and haunting emotion combine to draw half-seen figures full of enigmatic drama, like strange statues illuminated by the roadside. Melody conveys a feeling of hope in the face of spectral presences from the past before the music comes to an end.
Cloudy calm flows while melodic tones reflect oneiric tranquility, creating inner contemplation as “The Rescue” breathes into existence. Subtle percussion accompanies a crescendo of refulgent notes, gaining momentum as they unfold. Speeding into the horizon, springy synth propels while excitement builds, thrilling through me.
Images of blacktop highlighted by searching headlights rise from the hypnotic interaction between synth and rhythm. Silhouetting the darker tones which slip behind, a synth is illuminated with neon light as the music grows quiet and more muffled. Percussion slides away while a night breeze rustles in the distance and delicate tones drift with it.
Massive surges heave beneath refined, hypnotic notes that glide over the increasing beat. Feelings of being set free rise to add heart to the music, underpinned by an underlayer of forceful motion. Blending diaphanous lightness with compelling drama produces music which is both contemplative and motivational.
Waves of rhythm shudder against trance-inducing sonic patterns, producing sensations of the landscape rushing by in moonlit darkness. Starlight glimmers in the black sky, cascading synth producing a feeling of wondrous illumination. As the music ends, it evokes countryside racing by the car window as one speeds through the night.
“Midnight” draws images of the night falling in waves of soothing motion, the whole scene bathed in bluish moonlight. Broken ticking from percussion, like a clock on half-time, moves with steady beats while peace slides from above. Intensity pours from heavy drum beats as the synth in the background dances with abandon and a sense of being freed.
Silvery bells ring to highlight vibrating bass and melodic lines glowing with luscious luminosity. A picture of nighttime as both full of joy and moments of contemplation grows in glistening delicacy. Flaring with cosmic tones playing sadly, the track transports me into the complexity of late-night thought.
A slipping tonal pattern takes hold of the music with a feeling of half-awake thought as tiny sounds shimmer. Shifting underlayers create propulsion as depth moves beneath that wandering above. A melody captures tenderness and feelings of closeness before the music ends.
A cutting synth moves rapidly and chords flash with soft light as “Outrunning the Stars” takes us on a layered, soaring journey across the galaxy. A gliding rhythm trips through the music as angular sounds intertwine and lambent chords flicker. As celestial tones rise, they spill out starry light. The background flows with cosmic brilliance, like stars in a velvet sky, capturing timeless emotions.
The underpinnings continue to throb with guiding force while interlocking synth sounds add softness. The drums drop away as string-like textures flow past like galaxies. Notes tremble out into openness, like quick glimpses of glowing planets, as chords pour out nebular light.
A thumping beat returns with hollow pulsation as vibrating tones shimmer and percussive force launches. Piano-like notes slip past with a tender gleam while the underlayer drives. OutRunner unleashes a guitar solo full of passion and flying dynamism, crying out intricately as it sweeps by. I imagine myself caught in a solar wind, gliding past sublime interstellar structures and mysterious planets. As the rebounding beat presses on, glowing notes spill brightness and the track comes to an end.
“Creatures Of The Night” slips wistfully into existence as serenity drips from caressing sonic flows. With peaceful strength, a beat grows in power while flickering lights trickle from diamond-clear synth. Deeply meditative feelings are supported by rhythmically massive weight. Shaping energy floats and a purely calming sensation carries me on a breezy glide.
A cloak of light shimmers, spreading out to wrap around the track, percussive pulsations shifting. Like a crystalline web, notes shiver with increasing delicacy in a haunting pattern. As the guitar comes in, feelings of freedom and easygoing emotion intertwine with a hint of something hurt and lost. Below it all, drumming gives guidance before the swirling arpeggios paint pictures of galactic motion. Soaring above everything, the guitar arcs and shines while the xylophone sparkles. Touching depth permeates the music until it closes out.
Rapidly slicing bass charges to give “Drive To The Rising Sun” electrifying life. Undulating with rippling muscle, breathy sounds carry out into open space as drums burst evenly. A feeling of completion and growing positivity radiates from arpeggios that glimmer with tender luminescence. I feel the end of a long night and the slow fingers of orange sun reaching to dispel the lurking shadows.
An image of the open road stretching into the expansive horizon washes through me. Hushed tranquility slips from a soft breeze while glistening synth captures sunrise over a desert. A filigreed tapestry of gently shifting sounds creates soothing moments as triumphant chords reflect like umber glow from glistening paint, like a car speeding into the growing light. Encouragement defines the melodic line as it calls out, full of hopeful resolve before the music ends.
Conclusion
“When The Midnight Whispers Its Stories” is a wonderful trip down a road of emotion and sensation. As each chapter of the sonic story unfurls, the listener is drawn more deeply into the world and the nature of the characters that appear in one’s mind. The end result is music that is both listenable and thought-provoking in the best possible way.
