Latest PVRIS album is 
catchy & thrillingly dark 

“You took my heaven away,” 

sings Lynn Gunn on “Heaven,” 
the first track of PVRIS’s new 
album All We Know of Heaven, 
All We Need of Hell. This 
sentiment — anguished and 
accusatory, the lyrics backed 
by a hard swell of rock — sets 
the tone for the rest of the 
album, a self-assured musical 
exploration that is as angry and 
troubled as it is fierce.

All We Know of Heaven, All We 

Need of Hell is PVRIS’s second 
album after their well-received 
debut, White Noise. It includes 
much of the emotional force 
and honesty that originally 
made White Noise popular, and 
refreshingly, it accomplishes the 
rare feat of not reaching too far 
beyond itself. The rock-infused 
approach to songs like “Heaven” 
and “No Mercy” is hard and 
dark, but not oppressive, and the 
lyrics are dramatic, but don’t 
come across as presumptuous 
or overused. This is especially 
true on “What’s Wrong,” with 
the repeated line, “You don’t 
need a metaphor to know I’m 
miserable.” The result is an 
album that is sure of itself, 
well defined and enthrallingly 
catchy.

It’s also very cohesive; the 

hard-edged 
guitar 
chords 

and ripped-raw lyrics carry 
the listener through anger, 
desperation, 
sorrow 
and 

finally numb resignation in 
the span of 10 songs, and at no 
point do the transitions feel 
jarring or unearned. This is in 
part because one of PVRIS’s 
strengths is their ability to 
balance 
soft, 
contemplative 

melodies with active, livid rock, 
often within the space of a single 

song. For instance, “Separate” 
starts out with a gentle (albeit 
dark) electronic ambience that, 
through 
steady 
drums 
and 

mounting production, escalates 
smoothly into a chorus that 
feels at once angry, waking 
and alive. The most surprising 
thing 
is 
that 

the 
transition 

is 
so 
seamless 

— 
it’s 
difficult 

to 
notice 
it’s 

even 
happening 

until it’s already 
over. The album 
comes full circle 
particularly 
in 

its 
final 
track, 

“Nola 1,” which 
incorporates 
the tune of the 
chorus of the earlier track, 
“What’s Wrong.”

An 
especially 
appealing 

aspect of All We Know of Heaven, 

All We Need of Hell is that while 
it was clearly carefully produced 
and arranged, it doesn’t lean on 
its own skillful production to 
carry the meaning. The lyrics 
also hold up to scrutiny in their 
own right. Early on, “Anyone 
Else” cuts to the bone with 
lyrics like “’Cause I could touch 

a hundred thousand souls / But 
none of them would ever feel 
like home,” and “Nola 1” closes 
out the album with skewed and 
scattered images of a house 
once haunted. Things do get a 
little cliché and melodramatic 
in “Walk Alone” (“I was the 

smoke 
in 
your 

lungs tearing you 
apart,” “Darling, I 
always knew that 
we were doomed,” 
etc.). 
However, 

every song on the 
album 
puts 
in 

at least a strong 
effort where lyrics 
are 
concerned, 

both 
in 
terms 

of visibility and 
description and in 

terms of honesty.

For all its merits, it must 

be said that All We Know of 
Heaven, All We Need of Hell 
doesn’t take PVRIS very far 
away from White Noise in terms 
of artistic direction. It’s darker 
and feels more complete and 
realized, but doesn’t mark any 
drastic new risks or interesting 
incorporations of new genres. 
Every once in a while it feels 
generic, because when you’re 
singing 
about 
relationship 

turmoil and tension from a 
frame as broad as heaven and 
hell, it’s hard not to get a little 
generic at times. But this is 
only the band’s second album, 
and it still stands alone as a 
dark, snappy and quality piece 
of work. The lyrics, production 
and melodies all contribute an 
equal effort to make the album: 
A strong representation of the 
turmoil that comes at the end 
of a relationship, and what that 
can mean emotionally for all 
involved.

LAURA DZUBAY

Daily Arts Writer

All We Know 
of Heaven, All 

We Need of 

Hell

PVRIS

Rise 

‘Game of Thrones’ season 
seven finishes strong

Since its premiere in 2011, 

“Game of Thrones” has developed 
a reputation for bold, sweeping 
season finales. That’s not to take 
anything away from the rest of the 
series’s episodes, which are equally 
ridiculous 
and 
consequential, 

but only to say that 
“Game of Thrones”’ 
finales have become 
almost larger-than-
life. True to form, the 
latest season send-
off, “The Dragon 
and the Wolf,” more 
than lives up to this 
tradition. 
Capping 

off 
the 
show’s 

seventh 
season 

masterfully, 
“The 

Dragon and the Wolf” redeems 
some of the series’s earlier season 
missteps and reminds audiences 
of the show’s status as television 
royalty.

Clocking in at 81 minutes, “The 

Dragon and the Wolf” is a massive 
cinematic 
episode 
that 
sees 

“Thrones” scheming at its best, 
with the Starks and the Lannisters 
leading the way. Having followed 
Sansa 
Stark 
(Sophie 
Turner, 

“Barely Lethal”) through her 
brutal 
upbringing 
in 
King’s 

Landing, viewers finally got to 
witness the culmination of Sansa’s 
transformation into a merciless 
and cunning Lady of Winterfell. In 
one of the most powerful scenes of 
“The Dragon and the Wolf,” Sansa 
beautifully conspires with Arya 
Stark (Maisie Williams, “iBoy”) to 
finally extract vengeance against 
Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (Aidan 
Gillen, “The Wire”). Watching 
Sansa use lessons in ruthlessness 
learned from Littlefinger himself 

— the architect of much of her 
suffering — was simply incredible. 
Elsewhere, in King’s Landing, 
Cersei Lannister (Lena Headley, 
“The Brothers Grimm”) concocts a 
brilliant plan with Euron Greyjoy 
(Pilou Asbæk, “Lucy”) to stealthily 
ferry 
The 
Golden 
Company 

mercenaries to Westeros.

While 
Cersei’s 
maneuver 

to bolster the Lannister army 

through 
mercenaries 
figures to be a 
central aspect of 
the next and final 
season, 
Season 

Eight 
seems 

primed 
to 
be 

dominated by the 
war between the 
White 
Walkers 

and 
the 
Stark-

Targaryen allied 

forces. “The Dragon and the Wolf” 
did a great job of featuring many 
of the series’s various overlapping 
stories, while still making clear 
that this war between the armies 
of the living and the dead is the 
show’s primary focus. For now, 
audiences will have to wait for 
any more clashes between the 
Lannisters and the Targaryens.

“The Dragon and the Wolf” also 

handled Theon Greyjoy’s (Alfie 
Allen, “John Wick”) meandering 
storyline well, inspiring viewers to 
root for the disgraced Greyjoy son 
again. After yet another season of 
a timid, spineless Theon, nearly 
all loyal “Thrones” supporters 
had given up hope of any sort 
of 
redemption 
from 
Theon. 

Flipping that narrative on its 
head, this season finale featured 
Theon summoning the courage 
to set out to rescue his sister 
Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan, 
“The Wolfman”). In the process, 
Theon kills a fellow Ironborn in a 

barbaric fistfight that wins back 
the support of his soldiers and, by 
extension, “Thrones” fans.

This is one of the biggest 

strengths 
of 
“The 
Dragon 

and the Wolf” — it rewards 
“Thrones” viewers’ loyalty with 
outstanding pay-off scenes. For 
years, “Thrones” has teased that 
“Winter is coming,” and with it, 
the army of the dead. The finale 
portrayed winter’s arrival in grand 
through a snowy scene in King’s 
Landing with a breathtaking 
shot of the Wall collapsing, 
shredded with fireballs by a 
White Walker riding an undead 
dragon. Outside of these shots, 
“Thrones” gave audiences a Jon 
Snow (Kit Harington, “Pompeii”) 
and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia 
Clarke, “Terminator Genisys”) 
sex scene after several episodes of 
subtle sexual tension.

As a “Thrones” season finale, 

“The Dragon and the Wolf” 
wouldn’t be complete without 
some 
last 
second 
plotline 

bombshell, 
and 
the 
episode 

fully delivers in this area. In the 
penultimate scene of the episode, 
fan-favorites Samwell Tarly (John 
Bradley, “Traders”) and Bran 
Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright, 
“The Boxtrolls”) learn of Jon’s 
true lineage as the son of Rhaegar 
Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. 
While the show has hinted at this 
revelation since its premiere, the 
discovery remains monumental 
by making Jon the true heir to the 
Iron Throne, though it also makes 
his relationship with Daenerys 
clearly incestal — she is his aunt. 
Having such a stunning reveal as 
only a minor piece of the stellar 
season finale is exactly what 
audiences have come to expect 
from “Thrones,” and it’s why they 
will keep returning to watch the 
series’s eighth and final season.

CONNOR GRADY

Daily Arts Writer

Game of 
Thrones

Season 7 

Finale 

HBO 

Arts

ALBUM REVIEW
TV REVIEW

The hard-edged 
guitar chords and 
ripped-raw lyrics 
carry the listener 
through anger, 

desperation

8A — Tuesday, September 5, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com