Hour - Ease the Work

A Closer Listen

Hour, the Philadelphia ensemble led by Michael Cormier-O’Leary, has outgrown the Tiny Houses of its debut.  A dozen performers appear on this album, and in a curious coincidence, there’s one track for each of them.  Tiny Houses’ lead video was shot in an attic; Ease the Work was recorded before tourist season in an empty island theatre.  At a recent show the stage wasn’t big enough, so the string section had to set up on the floor (oh, the indignity!).  In a perfect world, they would be swarmed with rabid fans excited to be so close to their idols, but modern chamber music lends itself better to restrained physicality.

Not that Hour is strictly chamber.  We compared the sound of Hour’s debut album to that of Do Make Say Think, but the new album is closer in tone to Rachel’s, whom the band boldly – yet accurately – lists as a sonic sibling.  The new album also captures the vitality of the first, although 2018’s restrained Anemone Red, released only nine months after Ease the Work, offers its own subtle pleasures.  This time the patience and the expanded ensemble – double the size of the original – pays off.

It must have been quite a chore to lug an entire studio worth of equipment first to a ferry, and then to Peaks Island in Maine.  When they were finally ready to record, the band experienced an island-wide blackout.  Opener “Island Time” is languid and laid-back, a reflection of the title.  When one is on island time, clocks and calendars seem less important.  The opener’s most endearing aspect is a percussive sound that may be someone chopping celery in the morning for a late afternoon soup.  The effect is intimate and inviting, like the light of a diner on a winter night.

The strings surge in the title track, a counterpart to the guitars.  The track even has its own “A Day in the Life” moment toward the end, as radio waves create an additional vortex.  This is as close to cacophony as the ensemble gets, easing off (in deference to its title) with “Stoner,” a piece as thin as sliced bread, and a lilting waltz.  The entire album is incandescent, conjuring the same feeling as a candlelit room.  If it doesn’t ease the work, it at least eases the stress.  Nothing is rushed; tracks like “Brain Scrub” save their finest moments (in this case, slow, staccato strings) for late in the game.  A sense of lightness is conveyed in seemingly improvised moments between the composed notes; the end of “Dying of Laughter” even includes a (short) drum solo!  Any doubt about approachability is dispelled in the opening notes of “Hallmark,” whose chords echo those of “Here Comes the Sun.”

While there are no long post-rock titles here, “The Most Gorgeous Day in History” captures the semantic vibe.  There’s a description of this day in the liner notes, but listeners may select their personal nominee.  The most gorgeous day deserves a gorgeous score, and Hour delivers.  Ease the Work performs the sonic trick of making it seem that a dozen performers can fit comfortably in a tiny house, and when one closes one’s eyes, one can imagine them scattered around one’s own living room on comfortable couches, playing away the worries of the world.  (Richard Allen)