Mikel Rafael – The Eternal Hour (2025)
The Eternal Hour, the haunting debut EP from Mikel Rafael, arrives like a whispered myth in the dark, intimate, literary, and laden with the heavy air of ancient memory. Clocking in at just three songs, it’s not so much a record as it is a pilgrimage: a quiet, cinematic journey through a single, surreal day marked by longing, folklore, and the ache of unanswered questions. If you’ve ever felt like a soul misplaced in time, this one’s for you.
Opening with ‘Maples and Pines’, Rafael ushers us into morning with delicate acoustic textures and a voice that trembles like first light on dew. There’s something sacred in the simplicity, a reverent hush underscored by ghostly strings and a lyrical introspection that feels almost sacred. Rafael doesn’t sing as much as he communes, invoking the melancholy spirit of Nick Drake and the clarity of William Blake. It’s a song about noticing, about standing still long enough to see the magic in the mundane.
The second track, ‘The Stream’, is the heart of the EP, a noonday mirage that walks the line between dream and reality. Rooted in the folk-noir traditions of Celtic storytelling, it captures the fevered searching of the solitary traveller, the one who hears a song in the trees and can’t help but follow. Here, Rafael’s literary instincts shine brightest. The stream becomes metaphor and memory, a place where myth and mental health entwine. Think Jeff Buckley in a haunted glen, chasing his own reflection downriver.
Then comes nightfall. ‘Rise Into The Gentle Night’ closes the trilogy with quiet grandeur, more hymn than ballad. It’s here that Rafael’s vocals stretch deepest, weaving sorrow and serenity into a dusk-hued spell. With harmonies like echoes and lyrics that reach into the soul’s hidden corners, he delivers a finale that feels less like an ending and more like a transcendence. The song lingers long after the last note, like smoke in the trees, or a story unfinished.
Throughout The Eternal Hour, Rafael proves himself more than just a folk revivalist, he’s a builder of emotional landscapes, a conjurer of forgotten spirits. There’s a bravery in his minimalism, in the way he resists modern production bombast in favour of raw truth and whispered myth. Inspired by Blake, shaped by Cohen, and delivered with the quiet fire of Lisa Hannigan or Ye Vagabonds, Rafael enters the scene not as a whisper but a presence.
Yet, for all its literary weight and conceptual scope, this EP is disarmingly human. It’s about chasing silence like salvation. It’s about feeling too much and not enough at once. It’s about that “eternal hour” we all wander through, the one where time feels still and unbearably full. With The Eternal Hour, Mikel Rafael is carving out a world. Sparse, spellbinding, and soaked in soul, it’s a stunning debut that promises more than music. It offers myth, memory, and meaning.
Find out more about Mikel Rafael on his Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify.
