Blog: B(oot)log

photo from Archivist's facebook page. Montreal's Archivist * has crafted a devastatingly gorgeous album. " Learning to Live on Poison " cycles through the various emotional states of heartbreak. Ben McCarthy channels it all: from the insomniac's depressiveness to the shouting defiance where he rages against himself, his lover, the world, before returning to somberness (although never resignation). The album is filled with emotion but it is ever trite or overblown. Seemingly deeply personal – the songs are filled with the pronoun 'I' and, on a few occasions, by McCarthy's first name – the emotion [...]

• Archivist - Jagwagger