By the time the line “To nine is to five is to nothing” is brushed casually through Black Hills approximately half way through this superb Eventide album, Austin-based Julián Berdegué may well have gone some way to offering an explanation of the true meaning of life as ‘resigned acceptance’, in an album that is so perfectly lyrically erudite and concise that it grips the listener with far more fervency than the odd moments of hope it almost begrudgingly offers.

Whether with the most subtle of gaze inflections, dulcet surf laden riffs, or jangly indie -rock, Berdegué manages to entwine his lucid, bombastic sounds around his lyrics to emphasize his strangely ‘contented disaffection.”

The dominant theme of the futility and monotony in life is explained almost casually in the opening Quotidian’s existentialist train of thought lyrics.

Wake up, crack on, jump in the shower
Lock the house in under an hour
Like your neighbors, swear by the bubble
Think like they do, stay out of trouble…

This is immediately re-inforced in the following Parisian Fur as he opines:

I was nothing but a free man

But I was coming in last

Always going nowhere fast

I was swimming in the deep end

But now I’m doing just fine

Falling in and out of line

Whilst the sense of ‘swimming in the deep end’ and doing ‘just fine’ shows he has ‘accepted his lot’ and is coping there is always an antithesis within the release that hints at the more endearing possibilities of life whilst being ultimately tempered with his inability to conjure up the courage to claim them.

The stand out Boredom is almost a dedication to such procrastination:

Run while you can

You won’t be young again

Jump if you dare

Get up on over there

You get in your head and toss about

But what if instead you tried it out

Tip toe, quick right

Fall out of sight

Lay low, hang tight

Stay up all night

Similarly love lost, or more specifically the potential for love is added to the things he talks himself out of in Thinking Of You.

How do you do

Rest assured that I’m thinking of you

Thinking of you

Thinking of you

With typical Berdegué utilisation of paradoxical lyricism the above chorus suggest a relationship has been formed until further reflection suggest the ‘How Do You Do’ only hints at his rehearsal or dream of a possible meeting.

In the same manner as the recent Darksoft Beigeification album, you can add this to your small list of acts who can possibly explain your life better than yourself. A lyrical masterpiece.

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