An Offbeat by CFUV review
Illustration via owlcity.com
Born in 1986, Adam Young grew up in Owatonna, Minnesota and began releasing music in the early 2000s, first as part of the band Windsor Airlift, and then through his solo projects Owl City, Sky Sailing, Port Blue, and the Adam Young Scores.
The Adam Young Scores is a project Young embarked on in 2016, where he recorded and released an original film score each month, based on moments in world history that Young found important. The scores are, notably, not written for actual films, and reflect the influence of composers like John Williams, James Horner, and the various composers of Disney film scores.
Over the course of 2016, Young released an album each month from February to December, beginning with Apollo 11 (February), RMS Titanic (March), The Spirit of St. Louis (April), The Ascent of Everest (May), Omaha Beach (June), Miracle in the Andes (July), Project Excelsior (August), Corduroy Road (September), Voyager 1 (October), Mount Rushmore (November), and The Endurance (December).
The Endurance, one of Young’s 2016 releases, is based on the Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 – 1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and is named after the ship sailed by Shackleton and his crew.
On the expedition, Shackleton and crew sailed to the Antarctic, where the ship Endurance froze in pack ice and sank. Remarkably, the entire crew survived.
“Shackleton” is the opening track on Young’s album The Endurance, the final album of the Adam Young Scores. “Shackleton” is jaunty and full of hope for the new expedition, but the intensity soon picks up in “The Weddell Sea” with a dangerous undercurrent that becomes fully thrilling in “Pack Ice.” This track ebbs between periods of tension and calm, mimicking the give and take of the ice as Endurance becomes trapped.
The tension comes to a head in “She’s Going, Boys,” capturing Endurance’s final moments as she sinks beneath the waves. A slow, mournful song, the last half of “She’s Going, Boys” features creaking and groaning sounds as the ship sinks. The pace picks up again in “The March”, once more driving towards a destination. A tentative and magical joy creeps back into the album with the second-to-last track “Elephant Island,” as the crew makes it one step closer to safety, a joy which becomes triumphant and fully realized in the final track, “South Georgia,” when the crew is rescued.
The Endurance is a cinematic, beautiful, and chilling album, combining sounds of waves and creaking timbers with driving melodies. Young summons the expedition through sound in a way that is immersive, haunting, and at some points, even cozy.
Though fans of “Fireflies” may find The Endurance startlingly different from Owl City’s musical offerings, I recommend the album to all fans of Young’s various projects, fans of arctic and antarctic expeditions, and anyone who, like Young, finds inspiration in sound.
The Endurance remains one of the most enduring (pun intended) albums in my library — no matter how my taste varies year to year I always return to it. This album is best listened to without shuffling, to get the full effect of Young’s storytelling — because at its heart, that’s what The Endurance is — a story of men, ice, and remarkable survival.
