Crywolf goes to darker, moodier, and more musically diverse places with his latest full-length effort, widow [OBLIVIØN Pt. I]

The new 16-track album from the acclaimed producer, singer, and songwriter has been highly anticipated by fans, as it marks the end of a year-long hiatus. The album also seems to mark a musical departure from Crywolf’s previously saturated electronica signature.

According to edm.com, Justin Taylor Phillips (Crywolf) composed much of the album “in a small wooden cabin in the Huilo Huilo rainforest in Patagonia…” and that solitude can be heard in the more meditative and sonically patient soundscapes of widow. Fans can expect to hear a more musically spacious, bare-bones, and stoic side to the EDM artist than they might be accustomed to. “One of the themes of this album,” Phillips says, “is the exploration of the shadow – the darker, more difficult aspects of the human psyche.”

This theme, as well as the album’s more pensive and solitary sound, are especially palpable on tracks like the opener, “ATHETØSIS [here’s the lullaby you made me promise never to write]” and “FAWN,” both of which quietly trudge on, reliant on nothing but lone, organic instrumentation (a piano and acoustic guitar, respectively) and Phillips’ own richly melancholic singing. Lonely, sparse ballads such as these are occasionally contrasted with larger, more electronically-infused cuts like “FALLØUT [antagonizer],” which builds itself up to an epically orchestrated bridge, tastefully drenched in autotune, and “DRIP,” one of the few dance-worthy songs on the album, asserting itself in lushly layered vocal samples and erratically vibrant rhythms reminiscent of the rainforest from which they were likely inspired.

widow [OBLIVIØN Pt. I] is exactly the thoughtful, meticulously crafted, seemingly effortless album you crave to hear from an artist after he takes a prolonged break. Crywolf has broken new ground with this release, and these 16 new songs are more than enough to make up for lost time.

widow [OBLIVIØN Pt. I]

Dustin DiPaulo is a writer and musician from Rochester, New York. He received his MFA in Creative Writing fromFlorida Atlantic University and can most likely be found at a local concert, dive bar, or comedy club (if he’s not getting lost somewhere in the woods).

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