by Eliana Fermi
From the first quiet inhale of “Little Left Hope,” Blizzard makes one thing abundantly clear: Dove Ellis isn’t here to impress; instead, he’s here to express. Blizzard is his debut LP, a musical expression, like a whispered invocation. Ellis’ singing and songwriting unfold as a hushed spell cast in lowercase letters, where the silences carry as much gravity as the sounds themselves.
Crafted with a songwriter’s care and almost entirely authored by Ellis, Blizzard nestles itself somewhere between the spectral intimacy of early Sufjan Stevens, the melodic bruising of Elliott Smith, and the orchestral nuance of chamber pop auteurs like Rufus Wainwright. The album has a sound, though, that belongs entirely to Ellis, who presents an artistic voice emerging fully formed, trembling but assured.
Let’s talk voice, because you can’t not. Ellis sings like someone who believes in the power of breath. His phrasing is relaxed, like he’s carving syllables with a mumbled purpose, letting them fall where they may. Think Jeff Buckley’s falsetto fragility with Thom Yorke’s aching restraint, but filtered through something deeply unvarnished. On “When You Tie Your Hair Up,” arguably the record’s emotional peak, Ellis delivers his vocal lines as if they were secrets he’s still not sure he should be telling. It’s subtle in its beauty; only a moment is needed to embrace its raw, hemorrhaging of emotion.
Across the album, Ellis favors sounds of softness. The arrangements rarely crescendo beyond a murmur. Instead, they glow with varying instrumentations. Strings pulse like candlelight, woodwinds sigh, and the percussion develops a beat at key moments. “Love Is” unfolds with this delicacy, a lullaby for grown hearts, trembling under the weight of love’s simplest truths. It’s one of those songs that feels like it develops sonically in the same manner it was written by someone who’s been hurt just enough to understand the power of hope.
There’s a quiet audacity in how unhurried this album is. Ellis builds songs carefully with layered textures that suggest rather than state. In “Feathers, Cash,”vocal harmonies float with fingerpicked guitar, while handclaps and subtle drums cradle the melody like old friends who know when to speak. These songwriting choices are the emotional scaffolding. Every instrumental choice is necessary as each timbre is chosen for feeling.
Tracks like “Jaundice” introduce surprising tonal swerves with a nod to traditional Irish folk that still manages to feel entirely cohesive within the album’s atmospheric fold. “Heaven Has No Wings,” meanwhile, veers into 60s psych-rock territory, albeit dreamily. And then there’s “It Is A Blizzard,” the title track not in name but in ethos. It’s here where the album’s themes of isolation, memory, and the fragile architectures of the self coalesce. I
Blizzard is compelling with its sonic subtlety and cohesion. This holds the album together, with every instrument woven into the emotional fabric around the vocals. There’s an internal logic to the sequencing, a sense of slow unraveling and gentle resolution. No part is too polished, no edge overly sanded. The songs are the story, and Ellis’ voice is the conduit. That’s the short of it!
