BEIRUT Schallplatten & CDs

Review: This is the seventh album by chamber pop titans Beirut. The group, who are led by Zach Condon, have created their largest album to-date and it's among their most profoundly beautiful. The music originated in 2023 when a contemporary circus director, based in Sweden, who was creating a show based on an adaptation of a novel by German author Judith Schalansky about loss and impermanence asked Condon to write music. And who better than Beirut to score that theme. Condon's vocals are starkly beautiful with the tenderness of early choir music. The track 'Caspian Tiger' is among the most cinematic of the tracks on here with resplendent Renaissance influences and direct lyrics that are tear jerking and feel genuinely moved by the extinction of the great mammal, but could so easily be about a close friend lost.