It’s been over four years since Portland-based Typhoon released White Lighter, and in that time singer-songwriter Kyle Morton has been grappling with the idea of “losing it”—the struggles a person endures when battling a deteriorating brain. On the band’s fourth full-length, Offerings, Morton funnels his own fears through a fictional character who is losing both his mind and sense of self.
The record is split into four movements—”Floodplains,” “Flood,” “Reckoning,” and “Afterparty”—each one illustrating a phase of the the character’s journey, from his realization that something is wrong, and the long struggle that follows, to his acceptance of his fate, dreadful as it may be. The 11-piece folk-rock ensemble creates an eerie backdrop for Morton’s stories, full of delicately plucked guitars, screeching violins, and, on opener “Wake,” the faint sound of static, as Morton has a premonition: “Of all the things you’re about to lose, this will be the most painful.”
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The record ebbs and flows, swinging from cacophonic sounds to joyous melodies, until arriving at calmness in the aptly titled closing track, “Sleep,” led by Morton’s forlorn vocals and a quietly strummed acoustic guitar.
Morton voices the doomed main character as he tries to navigate his condition—a situation complicated by the current political climate, which offers a compelling argument that the planet may need to be demolished before it can reset itself. The parallel between private and public chaos comes into full relief on “Rorschach,” which explores the age of information and collapse of meaning, which only adds to the narrator’s sense of disorientation and confusion.
Offerings is a chilling journey through the workings of the inner mind, and though it’s not an easy listen, its intricacies gain greater depth on repeated listens.
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