There are albums about heartbreak. There are albums about grief. And then there’s Absentia — an album that zooms out.
Longboat’s latest release doesn’t frame loss as a private tragedy. Instead, it studies it as a system. Careers collapse. Buildings disappear. Elections shift power. Fortunes evaporate. Identity erodes. Across Absentia, loss isn’t just emotional — it’s structural.
The Seattle-based project, led by songwriter Igor Keller, builds this record around the idea that absence is rarely isolated. It’s layered. Institutional. Often quiet. And that’s what makes this album feel so current.
Take “Everything to Offer, Everything to Lose.” On the surface, it’s about a career-track employee sacrificed to shield higher-ups from blame. But beneath that narrative is something broader: corporate self-preservation at the expense of individuals. It’s not melodramatic. It’s observational. And that restraint makes it sharper.
“Down the Drain” works similarly. A man loses a massive fortune and learns almost nothing from it. There’s no moral arc, no redemption. Just consequence without transformation. It reads less like satire and more like commentary on modern accountability.
Then there’s “Replaced with Nothing,” one of the album’s most pointed tracks. Inspired by the demolition of culturally significant buildings in Seattle, the song captures a very specific kind of urban grief. Structures disappear. The promised replacement never comes. The space just sits there. Empty. It’s a powerful metaphor, and arguably the emotional core of the album. Loss without renewal feels heavier than loss with resolution.
Even “Who Can Stop Me?” — centered around the loss of an American election — avoids dramatic outrage. Instead of slogans, Longboat focuses on the aftermath. Consequence. Momentum. What happens when power shifts and there’s no clear way to reverse it? The song doesn’t shout. It observes. And in today’s climate, that calm feels deliberate.
What makes Absentia compelling is its consistency. Longboat wrote, arranged, and produced the entire album himself, giving it a unified vision. The instrumentation remains organic and grounded, with subtle dynamic shifts rather than explosive peaks. When soprano sax cuts through on “Who Can Stop Me?”, it feels intentional, not decorative.
There’s an argument to be made that Absentia isn’t built for instant gratification. It doesn’t chase viral hooks or dramatic climaxes. Instead, it lingers. It asks the listener to sit with discomfort. That choice won’t be for everyone, but it reinforces the album’s thematic core: loss doesn’t always come with fireworks. Sometimes it’s just erosion.
If there’s a defining strength here, it’s maturity. Longboat doesn’t dramatize structural failure. He studies it. And in doing so, he delivers an album that feels less like a reaction and more like a diagnosis.
In a music landscape often driven by immediacy, Absentia chooses patience. It doesn’t try to fix what’s broken. It simply holds a mirror up to what’s missing — and lets that emptiness speak.
