REVIEW: Hammock - Nevertheless

dream diary chapter 14: bliss

44:01 // July 11th, 2025 // Hammock Music

In my eternal state of exclusively thinking in zoomerish brainrotten internetisms, the arrival of a new Hammock album forced the phrase “wake up babe, new Hammock dropped” into my head. However, if anything, that should’ve been something along the lines of “go to sleep babe, new Hammock dropped”. After all, there is nothing out there that has helped me sleep more and better than the likes of Everything and Nothing and Oblivion Hymns (perhaps only rivaled by my recently purchased pastel silk sleeping mask. shut up.). That’s a good thing, mind you: I sleep to/with(?)/alongside Hammock’s music because it is so ridiculously blissfully soothing, not because it is boring.

That being said, describing Hammock’s sound can be a bit tough. I’ve already adverbed “blissful” and typed out “soothing”, and these thesaurus synonyms will only get me so far. It also feels a little reductive to say that Hammock has two modes, but let’s roll with it for now: in essence, any new album by the band will either emphasise the post-rock side of things (Kenotic, Departure Songs, Everything and Nothing, Love in the Void) or the ambient side of things (uh, all the other ones). My preference tends to go out to the rockier take on their sound - I quite like their vocals too, ngl - but the more explicitly understated soundscapes can be deeply enticing as well. I won’t keep you waiting any longer (lol): this new record fits comfortably within camp ambient. However, it feels like one of the more layered takes on… can we call it… “Hambient”? No, let’s not. Sorry.

Anyway, layers! Nevertheless has them. Throughout the record, Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson construct cinematic soundscapes by playing Jenga with gentle strings, featherweight synths, subtle guitars and many coats of nearly indistinguishable swells. Songs add and subtract elements, building up to extended moments of bliss, before carefully deconstructing themselves into nothing but a quiet hum. In spite of sounding about as “grand” as compositions this minimal possibly can, there is a real vulnerability to all of Nevertheless: at any given moment, it feels like the record could implode in on itself. This makes sense - as with an unfortunate large portion of Hammock’s more subdued projects, it was created in the aftermath of tragedy and finds the duo working through grief. There are no attempts at making sense of the senseless here; there are no words, no lyrics, no vocals to try and comprehend that which brings nothing but pain. Instead, this record stands tall by being quiet, but not silent.

While Nevertheless is undoubtedly gorgeous and almost shockingly diverse for its relative one-dimensionality, it remains primarily… pleasant. Its backstory is heartbreaking; its soundscapes are beautiful. This is an album where individual songs do not matter quite as much as the overall experience since each moment of peace bleeds into the next one and creates one unit of, you know, soothing bliss. Unsurprisingly, Hammock have crafted another lovely album-to-sleep-to: it may not be quite as sticky as their last, but will surely tide over my nights until their next release.

7.5/10.