Album Review | ‘Indelible Sundries (Live)’ by Eric Terino
Eric doesn’t allow fears to constrain him from making an exceptional experience on this conceptual live release.
I discovered the crisp, autumnal sounds of Eric Terino from his 2022 release Innovations of Grave Perversity. His high register and soft delivery captured this journey from the harsh bite of winter into the first hopeful buds of spring. Upon hearing that he was culminating his ten-year catalog of material for a live project, I was interested to see how these, and other older tracks, would transform. I got the opportunity to listen to this record ahead of its release date October 18th and was excited to hear how these songs came together.
Eric suffers from agoraphobia, a form of anxiety disorder that hinders his ability to tour. As such, Terino turned to his creativity to make the concept come to life. Bringing together his various international band members’ single live takes, Eric weaves a solid reproduction of what sounds like an entirely performed for an audience.
Continuing with the haunting, evergreen sounds of his prior project, “Intro” opens the show like the rush of blue light washing over a forest at the break of dawn. This instrumental brings a sense of beginning to what is to come. I love coos of theremin alongside awakening strings that all bring color over the chilly arpeggiated piano melody blanketing this piece.
Terino keeps the heart of a coniferous landscape coated in snow that is “An Augury of Hope.” Utilizing the haunting cry of the theremin more prominently here accentuates the howling winds wiping around his shelter. Much like the album version, this live take brings an icy beauty to the stillness that Eric lingers in between snow drifts of depression and the faint glow of hope that bathes this landscape in a gentle sparkling glow.
“Churches Rise On My Skeleton” strips away some of the aqueous nature of the original, bringing a woodland splendor surrounding Eric’s gentle voice. I love how the flutes, strings, and harps all combine to give an overcast glow over Terino’s crumbled visage. His pleads to rip the bindings of fear asunder to find love again come to life under this arrangement, “If I lie and wait for you/ Will I see the dark burn blue?/ Will ivy slip through my skeleton?/ Where have you been/ If I had the strength to roam,/ Would I walk the path alone?/ If I ripped the curtains down,/ Would I find your face in the crowd?” There is so much guilt, sorrow, and remorse that bleeds out of this version. I like how this releases the fog from its original, allowing us to see the pain underneath.
“Invocations” swaps the gentle ripples of piano for the soft purr of acoustic guitar. I prefer the radiating incorporeal sounds of the album version compared to this reimagining. I feel like it brings a maritime sorrow that is somehow lost in the switch to a soft, woodsy acoustic guitar melody. That said, it keeps alive Terino’s reverent sense of loss that sows all of this sadness together.
The reimagining of “The Ballad of Misguided Affection” brings hope to Terino’s mournful revelations regarding the demise of a relationship. Whereas the Champagne and Childhood Hunger version brings a sense of isolated epiphany to the fading light of his smooth guitar melodies, this reinvention buds with delicate new life through the floral array of harps, strings, and horns.
We remove the sounds of frigid winter winds in the original version of “Torture The Dead,” opting to quell the squall but leave the tundra behind. The lumbering upright bass and spooky theremin now bite at you through the trudging layers of snow, coating the memories of love and closeness that now hang as whithered formless shapes.
I love the lush golden glow of horns that populate the soundscape of “Enough.” Mixing this sound with the gentle pluck of the harp splashes the backdrop with the colors of fall leaves dancing in a gentle breeze. Eric’s voice is that soft current that wafts a feeling of stagnant change over the withering hopes for new love, “These waves are easing now, but times keep getting rough/ Our feet are dancing in the air below the bluff/ Now, I know it’s time to give it up/ I’ll never be in love with somebody who loves me enough.” I quite enjoyed the richness that Eric and his band brought to this fragile yet beautifully crafted reworking of his debut album.
“Mark (Saint Francis Blues)” dulls the crunchy edges of the punky rock original into something much more sullen. Joining him on backing vocals is folk musician Jolie Holland, whose contribution only adds to the gloomy atmosphere. The flutter of strings adds an ominous tension behind his soft acoustic melody. His soft voice leaves behind the sketch of a tense argument between two lovers that’s now a stain in his mind, “So there I stood alone, under towers, closer to the sound/ I’d remembered everything I’d asked for and bitter-faced turned the little town/ We expanded and I clambered, rage now coaxing its way through/The only way to leave this life’s by killing everything you do/ So I pressed my heels into the ground/ And in the dirt they left that mark.” I prefer the depth of this reimagining brings.
The longest track on this release, “Mountains of Nothing In Love,” takes a rather jazzy path. In the wake of this sinuous, hazy soundscape is the shape of a man left stranded without a way to find his way back to love, “With each tiny summer clouds gather and clouds fade/ as do the faces I’ll never see again/ I just don’t know how much hell I can take/ I’m afraid of it all and I’m afraid we’ll sink away.” The inclusion of Jolie Holland’s sultry backing vocals only adds to the pained sensuality that Eric taps into. While I do enjoy its malleable upright bass and velvety horn, the relatively slow motion of the song can make it feel a bit too drawn out.
“It’s Not For Me Anymore” sounds fully realized with the backing of deep strings and rustic upright bass. Without the wash of synths and reverb that clouded the original, Eric’s gushing heartbreak lays bare alongside the mournful cry of horns to solidify the traumas he’s endured: “In my life I’ve seen some things/ That most men can’t speak about/ I’ve watched my best friend die/ And fires that burned my house down/ Once I went to therapy/ And then a doctor and a lawyer/ They weren’t the only ones who raped me/ Too many now to even bother.” Because of this new treatment, I can’t help but feel the despondence of a man who weathered layers of tragedies only to leave behind a hopeless figure too tired to try to sow the seeds of love again.
“Crow Congregation” brings with it a taunt wire of dissonant anxiety through the melodies of the chaffing strings. It reminds me a bit of the warped retooling PJ Harvey did with “Man Sized Sextet.” The only thing that gives us a sense of footing is Eric’s voice through the vertigo-inducing array of abrasive string arrangements. He details a rather bleak image of a haunted man by the harbinger of darkness that dives all close to him away, “Unknowingly, we trap them all in/ But that crow congregation seems grim/ Solitude can’t find a place to hide them/ So that crow congregation begins/ Are we safe here?/ No, never, no./ Can we escape here?/ No, we probably won’t/ Now, I’m a tale to tell/ Trapped in this house with him and wild whiskey/ Mothers, you must pray your sons don’t fall in love with me.” Something is captivating about this arresting version that continues to bring me back to it again and again.
I prefer the switch to the harp backing on this reworking of “Body Gets Stoned” over the original. I understand Eric’s double meaning surrounding a fall from grace, “On top of a hill stood one silent star screaming for the light but damned to the dark/ He flew determined, like a baby unmaimed/ like the curse in his eyes, like a god without a name/ Every body gets stoned and every one is dethroned/ Now they’ve left us all alone/ so let’s all just get stoned.” Jolie Holland’s voice is like a haunting breeze rustling through the sexual guilt and emotional fragility that Terino grapples with.
“Not a Hole” completely reinvents the original's mechanical, heavy piano tones for something much more well-rounded. I can hear his affinity for Liz Phair’s candor in this starkly sexual tale, “Joey my love, I need you to hold it/ While I am sitting it inside of me/ You know it just isn’t the same/ Joey my love, without your mouth on me… Joey my love, please spread yourself open/ I’m begging you Darlin’ to take it from me/ You’re wetting my heart with these moments you’ve stolen/ Joey my love, your pussy is sweet.” Compared to the hollow-sounding take from his sophomore album, the mixture of jaunty acoustic guitars, warm trumpet, and subtle violin completely reinvigorate this tale of a boyfriend whose push and pull still leaves marks on the shores of Terino’s mind.
“Ghosts” keeps the tenuous structure of the original, which now feels much more wooden through delicate string arrangement. The added warmth that this structure gives the piece tugs tightly on your heartstrings as Terino aches to hold on to any form of the loved one after their passing, “I never believed in ghosts/ But I wish that I did/ ’Cause living without you’s no way to live/ Show me that I’m wrong/ I don’t care how or when/ Just let me know if I’ll see you again.” The growing fervent frustration toward the end of the song punctuates the wave of anguish surrounding his inability to keep them with him.
We preserve the thawing warmth of “Felt” while bringing out more of the sprouts of spring through crystalline harp melodies. Eric feels like a vine desperately climbing to find the light of love in any physical manner underneath a thick canopy of disappointment, “So let’s just say I gave it all that I could/ and that’s enough to get me through another lonely day today/ I’ve been clinging to the past again/ I’m still fighting for the wrong man/ I’ve been drowning in everything I felt/ I felt.” While the fullness of the album version is still preferred, I love the lacey beauty that Eric brings to this version.
“I Didn’t Live There” brings more intimacy to this tale of drifting through life as he switches the growing strings for an acoustic arrangement. I appreciate how Jolie and Eric’s voices interplay in this version. Both versions keep ahold of this memory-like intangibility to the various places that Terino seemed to drift through. I like that he kept some of the dull blush glow of the strings that signify the dawn of a new day in his life.
We close off the project with a cover of Sandy Denny’s “No More Sad Refrains.” It’s extremely fitting to close this project with this cover as it holds hope that closure will finally come to Terino, “And when these winter days are over/ I mean to set myself upon my feet/ I see me as something that I have never been/ I’ll pick up the pieces that make a man complete/ I’ll be smiling all the time at everybody/ My friends will tell me I’m just not the same/ And I won’t linger over any tragedies that were/ And I won’t be singing any more sad refrains.” I love that he utilizes his trademark soft timbre to pull the emotion out of Denny’s words. The combination of strings and acoustic guitar let the sun rise on Eric as we close out this record.
As a whole, this conceptual live album beautifully demonstrates Eric’s growing talent as a songwriter. I am especially impressed by how tracks from Mountains of Nothing In Love and Champagne and Childhood Hunger sound completely reinvigorated, making the originals almost sound like demos in their wake. Using the constraints of Terino’s agoraphobia to his advantage, every layer of instrumentation sounds as if it was played live before an audience. His strengths continue to shine through his exploration of folk and singer/songwriter arrangements as they truly accentuate the depths of sorrow and loss that he pours forth. For those who enjoyed his prior album, Innovations of Grave Perversity, you are in for a treat with these live retoolings. The album releases on October 18th, 2024 for those interested in either Eric’s full body of work or any fan of soft alternative-folk music.
My overall thoughts on Indelible Sundries (Live):
Loved it: “An Augury of Hope,” “Churches Rise On My Skeleton,” “Torture The Dead,” “Enough,” “It’s Not For Me Anymore, ”“Crow Congregation,” “Ghosts,” “Felt,” “No More Sad Refrains”
Liked it: “Intro,” “Invocations,” “Mark (Saint Francis Blues)” (feat. Jolie Holland), “Body Gets Stoned” (feat. Jolie Holland), “Not a Hole,” “I Didn’t Live There” (feat. Jolie Holland)
Disliked it: “Mountains of Nothing In Love” (feat. Jolie Holland)
My overall rating: 7.0 out of 10.
