Advance Base’s new album Horrible Occurrences is a concept record about a fictional town called Richmond (not Virginia). The record collects brief recollections on characters from around Richmond who experienced one hardship or another. The almost ambient instrumentals feature little more than Owen Ashworth’s soft synth compositions and his voice. Well-crafted loops provide dreamy foundations for the often unsettling personal histories of the people of Richmond.

Simple piano loops provide the basis for most tracks. Two-handed melodies play out like a lullaby version of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports. Songs rise and fall but the main motifs stay stable. The album's second half is animated by the introduction of a drum machine, starting with the song Brian’s Golden Hour. The drums set a medium tempo for the heartbreaking montage to come. The atmosphere of Horrible Occurrences is minimal but not dull.

The vignettes portrayed on Horrible Occurrences are built gradually as Ashworth reveals the stories within. The album plays out episodically, jumping from story to story, each with a tragic undercurrent. We are dropped right in the middle of these characters' lives. Not-so-extraordinary people are put into heart-wrenching situations. It seems like when everything is going well the rug is pulled out from under them. Sometimes the rug pull is that the song is over which is all the more frustrating. The Nebraska-like examinations of these characters reveal that closure is not guaranteed. Like when a well-meaning parent plays Tooth Fairy but ends up frightening his daughter after he leaves the house to get a dollar (The Tooth Fairy). Even though the child and parent are reunited, it's not a happy ending. On Rene Goodnight the conclusion is similarly vague. One must wonder if the person courting Rene is on a path to redemption or on a continuing cycle of abuse. You would expect there to be one more verse at the end of these songs to tell you what it all means, but there isn’t.

Lush backdrops coupled with Ashworth’s casual baritone have an engaging songwriting alchemy. The minimal arrangements read like folk songs, substituting acoustic guitar and harmonica for synthesizers and drum machines. There are emotive performances that veer towards spoken word more than singing. Ashworth has a baritone that could be mistaken for his good friend David Bazan (Pedro The Lion). They both have a knack for describing disappointing life events in a way that is pleasing to listen to. The way that Ashworth’s voice will crack or stumble gives needed life to the album’s synthetic soundtrack. Ashworth even breaks into a passionate falsetto at the conclusion of The Year I Lived In Richmond, wailing like Bruce Springsteen as the song fades out.

Horrible Occurrences is not sonically oppressive, but the weight of the lyrical content at times can be. Ashworth’s obvious knack for creating pleasant musical motifs is a needed counterbalance to the heartbreak throughout the record. The arc of these characters' stories are

sometimes cut too short for closure. You do feel for these characters but only at a distance. The unsettling result seems to be the point based on the album's title. The characters are connected in their survival, even though they represent a vast spectrum of personal tragedy. We can all relate to that feeling of the world crashing down then waking up the next day. The lack of closure for these characters embodies a dreadful question asked in the aftermath, is that it?.

Order Horrible Occurrences by Advance Base HERE