Now that his band
American Football appears to be a going concern once again,
Owen is no longer
Mike Kinsella's sole musical project. However, it still feels like the purest distillation of his musical world view, one where he doesn't have to share his creative space with anyone, and 2020's
The Avalanche is a superb showcase for the dour beauty of his songs and his ideas about bringing them to life. Though
Kinsella's lo-fi home recording days are long past, having access to a real studio and the services of producer
Sean Carey hasn't made his music any less intimate and introspective.
The Avalanche has been produced with impressive skill and care (technically as well as in terms of performances), and between the primarily acoustic arrangements, the thoughtful use of horns and string arrangements on several tracks, and the plaintive, unguarded tone of
Kinsella's vocals, this music sounds devastatingly personal and honest, beautiful on the surface yet full of troubled thoughts about himself and his world if one takes more than a cursory look. Exploring the nooks and crannies of
Mike Kinsella's psyche should be a familiar game to followers of
Owen by now, and the bittersweet resignation of this music should surprise no one with a working knowledge of his music. Still,
The Avalanche never sounds pro forma;
Kinsella can make his shifting emotions understood with crystal clarity and without histrionics, and he's gracefully downbeat, an artist who turned melancholy into an accessible art form. Though happiness is elusive in
Owen's world, beauty is not, and
The Avalanche is a striking testament to
Mike Kinsella's gifts, where even sadness can pay handsome rewards under the right circumstances.