The title of Naima Bock's sophomore record is a bit of a misnomer — the immense, looming weight of a phrase like Below a Massive Dark Land belies the airborne majesty of the music within.
Below a Massive Dark Land doesn't make any great leaps from Bock's 2022 debut Giant Palm, instead digging deeper into that album's sumptuous, richly arranged folk music and blowing it up to silver-screen proportions. There's an epic sweep to Bock's latest, a grandness that pulls English folk traditions like taffy, stretching and reimagining the possibilities of these classic sounds.
From the rambling saxophone that jaunts across "Feed My Release" to the airy, shapeshifting tenderness of "Moving" or "Gentle" to the rousing singalong that closes "Age," Bock's latest feels so populated with bodies and sounds and life that listening is akin to arriving in a new city, the foreign thrum shaking you from stagnation. Beneath that Massive Dark Land exists an entire universe of light waiting to be discovered.