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Portland's The Golden Hours are something tiny, gorgeous, and haunting and with The Mystery & Her Crew they've created a miniscule masterpiece. The band is three: Eliza Sohn, Brian Yoder, and Raf Spielman. This six song mini-album is a re-recording of the tape of the same name that quickly sold out on Not Not Fun last year. According to the band, the NNF tape was "an experiment at making something that was sparse and clean" while this CDR is "smeary and a little bit weird" but it still sounds gloriously crystalline to me. The instrumentation here is guitar, organs, violins, glockenspiel and Eliza's tiny little pipes contrasting with Brian's rumble. All musical signs point to twee but the dark, contrasting lyrics make it altogether different. On "White Sheets," easily one of the most beautiful songs I've heard in a long time, Eliza sings "White sheets under a grove of trees/Outside of school/ Cover dead bodies/All my ships have sailed" and "Gathered round the hospital door/Anxious to see who could be no more" over the sweetest little glockenspiel melody and violin drone you ever did hear. Her voice and lyrics are the band's secret weapon. It's one of those crush-inducing voices. It's not completely different from one Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn, which certainly doesn't hurt. Brian sings on two tracks and "When Two Giants Are Forced Into The Hills" is another highlight. The closest thing here to true twee, you can't help but think of a certain other Northwestern sweetie due to the subterranean vocals similarites. However, Mr. Yoder is a little more on pitch than Mr. Johnson. Eliza's "Shallow Breath" is a rumination on not even needing "the air you'd allow me to receive" and the most smeary track with it's organs and ever-so-slightly echo-y vocals. Giving an amazing amount of thematic cohisiveness to an 18 minute album, the bookending tracks "Ships At Sea" and "Drop Anchor" are lyrical twins. We find the narrators of both tracks (Eliza in both cases) drowning rather peacefully. Almost appealingly. Musically, "Ships At Sea" fits its title being vaguely sea shanty-esque while "Drop Anchor" is just pretty guitar. The short running time prevents any filler from being included even if it leaves me craving more. With great screen-printed covers and hand-drawn Sharpie decorations on the discs, this is a wonderfully personal album and it just might be one of my favorites of the year.

The Golden Hours at Amazon & Insound