Recorded over two years, the original sessions for Night's debut, whisper, were entirely scrapped, due to the near-obsessive attention to quality and detail by the songwriting duo of Francesco Maraldo and Jenna Fournier. After the first sessions, fraught with technical difficulty and yielding substandard results, the band regrouped and followed through on what was an already highly anticipated collection of songs amongst fans of the group in their hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Striking their first mark with an EP, 2010's A Tangle Of Arms, Nights developed whisper, the second time around, over the length of 2012 under speculation amongst fans, detractors, and even friends that it would ever be completed. While their earlier effort was recorded relatively quickly (by Nights' standards), whisper takes the level of meticulous detail set by Maraldo's previous production and has it laser carved into sonic stone with seasoned efficiency by freelance engineer Jim Stewart. The result is an aural swath of lush sonic-scaping underpinning gorgeous and progressive melody and composition by the group. Simultaneously conjuring the classics of ambient songsmith (Cocteau Twins, The Cure) and crashing them into the rapturous ruckus of mid-90s alternative giants (Hum, Smashing Pumpkins, Dinosaur Jr), Nights deviates from it's musical influence with confessional, introspective lyricism characteristic of millennial artists (Jenny Lewis, Ryan Adams), adding yet another shade of aesthetic complexity to their already layered repertoire. A primal stomp heralds album opener Walkaway, sliced by a distinctive chord progression of chiming guitar by Maraldo and propelled by the Chamberlin -esque groove of virtuoso percussionist Chris Dalman. Dalman pushes the beat through the swirling sheen of guitar distortion while the amorphous harmonies of Fournier and Maraldo duel with the bouncing, melodic bass hook that is interwoven through the song. A bubbling loop rolls through Had A Dollar while warm swells cushion Fournier's melancholic melody and vocal-like, fingerpicked guitar. Here she delivers the album's most personal lyrics alluding to abuse, struggles with faith, and feelings of emptiness. Lines like been a whore with my fears and dreams\u002Fsharing my soul with whoever seems to care are sang with honesty, almost apologetically, and with a touch a desperation. Mouthful Of Sand features pure pop form, a pounding rocknroll backbeat, culminating in a mountainous crest of feedback that Dalman's kit shreds through with Fournier's voice floating above to safety. The catchy tunefulness is paired with tongue-in-cheek lyrics about the trials of two artists trying to sustain a romance.The album takes another turn with the unnerving atmospherics of Butterflies, penned by Fournier about the subjects of self-victimization and mind control. Haunting images of falling into a field fork-tongued creatures, paired with a hypnotic pulse of guitar, are finally dispelled by an interlude of striking bass guitar melodicism.As the song closes, it morphs into the sonic abstraction of In The Garden, which was originally devised by Fournier as a minimalist composition. Maraldo seduces the guitar into alien timbres and hazy harmonic cacophony, taking a cue from the best of ambient music's stalwarts (Eno, Shields) as Fournier twinkles in-between with a melody that was seemingly trapped in a forgotten music box. Commandingly, the rhythm section seizes control, laying a thick groove as foundation for the crashing riff of Glow, which shatters all previously conceived notions of what Nights is about. Swooning betwixt roaring, barely contained textures, Maraldo and Fournier unite again, weaving counterpart threads of melody through the delirious din. The pummeling squall subsides, beaten back by yet another characteristically lyrical bass line leading the listener into the undulating, immersive Rosebush. Vibrating ripples of chords and a twinkling arpeggio are supplanted by a uniquely dance-able chorus with heavenly, layered vocals recalling both the hope and despair of love and love-lost. As Fournier chants like stardust, the guitars indeed seem to sparkle, riding a wave up into the ether. The jingle of an acoustic shuffles along with with Dalman's astute snare in the dreamy ballad, Holiday. Poignant, yet surprisingly playful, Fournier reflects on a beau falling in love with his own addictions. Maraldo shifts through the timidly tumultuous moods with jazz-like voicings on an apparition of electric guitar.Though without all the rock and rumble of previous songs, Dalman's playing reaches a peak with Trees, lyrically accenting the call and response cadence of the vocal line. Fournier's terse syllables cry out a tale of her upbringing in the Las Vegas desert as rhythmic, rolling chord phrases flow through the quivering and shimmering drones of effects, this piece gazes through a long line of influences and Nights puts its own progressive-minded touch on the form. Sunshine begins with the strangled crackle of torn speaker guitar, while absent-mindedly a hint of melody strolls in. After firmly shifting into a noisy groove, Fournier's curiously subdued delivery erupts into a power chord driven hook, ramming it's way towards radio-wave stardom. Blooming shades of accompaniment lift up singalong vocals toward the stratosphere and drop the composition into sparkling la-la land. Then, what follows can only be described as a monolithic slab of molten rock, slammed squarely on the listener's head with prehistoric panache. On the final track, Nights pulls from it's short past, returning to the shortest cut from it's debut EP, Lullaby. For all the varying moods and genre shifts up to this point, the song is simply crafted to enchant the listener with a bouncy jaunt of fuzzy riffs and sweet sing-song melody. Where the song deviates from it's previous incarnation is that it merges into a polyrhythmic odyssey of ping-ponging fretwork and ticking time signatures. Centered around a revolving, extended composition cycled through by Fournier, Nights' rhythm section improvised the counterbalance between the erratic and frenetic guitars of Fournier and Maraldo, live in studio, in one straight take. On top, Fournier adds off kilter melodies with bells, whistles, and toy piano. Her voice is layered into scat-like crooning and supple harmony with whimsical wandering meant to simultaneously lull and excite the ears and bookend the album.