It would be understating things to say that Mount Eerie's latest, Ocean Roar, is a headphones album. This is an album to justify buying really big, really expensive headphones. Phil Elverum matches the sonic intricacy of his music with an intensity of feeling. Meanwhile, his lyrics retain a stunning economy that nevertheless encompasses grand themes.

Ocean Roar is the companion to Clear Moon, released in May. Clear Moon seemed a direct successor to 2009's Wind's Poem, taking the latter album's themes of transience and the natural world and applying them specifically to Elverum's home of Anacortes, WA. Ocean Roar continues to examine these themes, but is the more aesthetically cohesive of the two.

“I Walked Home Beholding” shows Elverum at the height of his lyrical craft, but it is as a unique sonic artifact that this album truly shines. Opener “Pale Lights” features a technique Elverum has used since his first work as The Microphones: A loud instrumental track starts the song, but the volume is quickly lowered until it is barely audible, and Elverum starts singing. The cacophony persists, just on the edge of hearing, underscoring the quiet force of Elverum's voice.