Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson

It’s tough to ignore the backstory when dealing with Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, but to focus too much on the hardships and addictions that checker his past would discredit what really needs to be discussed, and that is his wonderful and completely original self-titled debut record. It is a stark, open-letter to himself that is as vulnerable and gorgeous as any album released this year. There are hints of Bon Iver both in Robinson’s voice and his spare arrangements on some of the tracks, but the woods of Justin Vernon’s Wisconsin are replaced by the hard streets of Robinson’s New York, and that gives the album a bit of a rougher edge to it as well as a more worldly sound, perhaps due to it being produced by Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor. The album is striking in both its immediacy and its intimacy, which is a testament not only to the songwriting of Robinson but also his uncanny ability to strip the songs of any pretense and veneer and deliver what is truly in his heart.

The album starts out intensely with ‘Buriedfed’, that begins with the line: ‘This is my last song about myself,’ even though the record is filled with songs about self-examination and various levels of introspection. The track is a desperate plea for something, anything, worth living for, a ray of light to save the subject from the threatening darkness closing in on him. And if this song (and album for that matter) was some sort of a life-preserver amongst a sea of death and despair for Robinson, we are all that much better off due to his determined survival. And the album just gets better from there, with the light, bouncy piano on ‘The Debtor’ masking the harsh themes of addiction and anguish in the song. The electric guitar and noisy discord of ‘Woodfriend’ contains elements of the innovative din of TV On The Radio (whose Kyp Malone guests on the record), and is the match that truly sets the whole album on fire.

‘I ain’t goin’ dancin’, cuz I can’t even breathe,’ proclaims Robinson on the heartbreakingly gorgeous ‘Who’s Laughing’, just in case any listener confused this for a party record. It’s most assuredly an after-the-party record, and might just make you question your hard-living ways. These songs and their revealing lyrics are all just layers that Robinson is peeling off to get to the real him within, and he takes the listener on every step of that personal journey. There is almost too much here to process on a single listen, as the raw intensity of ‘The Ongoing Debate Concerning Present vs. Future’ is so full of emotion that you could miss lines as wonderful as ‘I wanted to be anything she asks for in her dreams’ while you try and figure out what the title of the song is alluding to. The album wouldn’t work without lines like that, for there is an overabundance of singer/songwriters that are pouring their hearts into lyrics that don’t convey anything other than bad grammar-school poetry. MBAR distances himself from that woeful pack considerably throughout this sublime record, continually coming up with lyrics that perfectly match the potency of the song.

‘Written Over’ begins with the subject’s ‘face in the dirt, my ass in the sky,’ but ends with him on his knees, praying for salvation to a God he hopes hasn’t given up on him. It’s the shortest song on the record, but packs the biggest punch with its naked vulnerability. The prayer that ends ‘Written Over’ segues nicely into ‘Mountaineerd’, in which the subject’s search for redemption continues. ‘Boneindian’ is the last rock hurled in vain at the moon on the album, and is the desolate, somber finish to the record that you would expect, given the direction and subject matter of the other songs. The lines ‘Don’t care to eat, and to drink makes me thirst/My second year here has been worse than the first’ don’t lead you to believe things are getting better for Robinson, but being able to turn his misery into something so beautiful has hopefully given him something to live for. Here’s to hoping his days are indeed getting better, and that he keeps pouring himself into his art in such an expressive, original way. For if this album proves anything, it’s that the darkness didn’t win, Robinson did. As did music lovers everywhere.