You know those nights where you‰’re lying in bed unable to sleep, and you start remembering specific events from your past that you hadn‰’t thought about in years and get kind of emotional? Fenton, Michigan two-piece Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) has taken that experience and turned it into their 11-track sophomore full-length.

Each track on the album is a somber recounting of memorable experiences from various times in lead singer Keith Latinen‰’s life, from ill-thought-out high school shenanigans to a near-death experience at 21. Latinen‰’s haunting, reminiscent voice and the calculated guitars and drums that occasionally erupt into passionate jamming compound the emotional weight of all the anecdotes.

Even the titles themselves hold weight and add to the emotional depths of the songs, such as “It’s So Much Darker When a Light Goes Out than It Would Have Been If It Had Never Shone‰Û, a song about the 50 year wedding anniversary and subsequent deaths of Latinen‰’s grandparents. You Will Eventually Be Forgotten is an intimate experience of an album, and definitely worth an intent listen.

RIYL: American Football, Joie De Vivre, The Antlers
Recommended: 1, 2, 10, 11