Eagleowl - Sleep the Winter

A song’s beauty can reside in the slightest of touches, the line separating a graceful composition from a shiver-inducing one sometimes as ephemeral as a single soft chord-change. Eagleowl’s aptitude for meticulously delicate, dewy-eyed alt-folk will be no secret to anyone with a copy of For the Thoughts You Never Had in their collection, yet Sleep the Winter’s gentle strings and appropriately chilly, under-the-breath vocals still manage to constitute an eye-opening step forward. And when the melody lifts midway through to usher in a chorus of sorts, the effect manages to be both understatedly subtle yet monumentally affecting. [Chris Buckle]