Crow is an immaculate record that rewards relistens while a listener is naturally conflicted about ever listening again. To understand all of it you have to face it over and over, like the actual reality of its subject matter, it isnt one and done, the effects will keep coming up in your memory
It's written in a way that plays off earlier highlights in his discography, it reframes those emotions and concepts into something even more raw and painful. Dawn's isolation is discussed, the running theme of Death and Emptiness in his music is discussed, The Moon is quoted to invoke that feeling on loneliness on an even harsher scale. Its these kind of insights that strengthen this record while forever recontextualizing those earlier ones in my mind
And musically it draws primarily from Dawn's strengths, but those melodies are even more subtle and buried and even more rewarding as a listener to discover. It's not just some bare folk, it's a lot of small details that make these songs unique and unlike anything prior in his work.
And I think the lyrics and Phil's delivery have been talked up and down and no one really needs to hear again about how well written and painful Ravens is or how the voice crack on My Chasm is nearly haunting
Hard to say I "love" this record but I think it's an incredible work whose emotions work both at the basic surface level and on deep deep examination
This isnt to say such depth is absent from his other work of course, there are as many of these touches on so many other records but none of them make me feel as strongly as these do