Last night in the doorway of my porch, I sat admiring the handiwork of nature. Massive thunderstorms were passing throughout Virginia, and my window was the perfect frame for the picture. I watched power lines sway and break, casting off their electric blue innards. The trees knelt in the tempo set by the winds. It was an apt segue for this throwback to Oh Land’s first album Fauna.
The Danish singer/songwriter/producer hit the scene in 2008 and has been steadily crafting her delicate but soulful sound. “Heavy Eyes” reads like a manual for heavy machinery. The hammering clicks and mechanical contraption that drives this song is blanketed with Oh Land’s determined vocals.
Cause I kept it steady, But you kicked me hard and I had to change my ways. Sneaking up on me like a cheetah, Disillusioned girl. Keep your eyes straight through me. Heavy eyes.”
So I admired the storm’s power as I listened to Oh Land, two machines defiantly at work. Both seemed elements of a universal design. Some trees are meant to fall and change the way we understand them, mostly when they land on our cars. “Heavy Eyes” is an exclamation of enlightenment, a true ode to maturity through hardship. Meanwhile I lost power and sweat my way through 108 degrees of understanding.