Passenger - Flight of the Crow

Passenger - Flight of the Crow - 2010 - Album Cover

The cover artwork of this album really caught my eye so I decided to listen to the whole album to try and gain an understanding of why this intriguing image was produced. I realised each track features a different artist Passenger is collaborating with which means each song has its own individual flavour.

If you analyse how the components of the image are lined up with each other, you realise that a lot of it doesn’t seem balanced. This is especially noticeable where the gap between the word ‘Passenger’ and the left border is considerably smaller than the distance between the crow and the right border. The paper the design appears to be drawn onto is crinkled and stained which suggests a carefree and disorderly approach as if it has been drawn at the spur of the moment. This all links to the laid back tone of the album. 

The suitcases are stacked quite haphazardly, again linking to the relaxed overall approach. The balancing act that is visible here suggests to me that the songs are all compiled together in this album and they don’t all fit together as a set but they somehow work as a whole. Its like the idea of ‘it shouldn’t work but it does’. 

To me, listening to this album was almost like going on a journey and meeting different people along the way. Suitcases are a visual metonym for travel and journeys but I think this could relate to the idea of the crow because the phrase ‘as the crow flies’ relates to directly getting from one place to another. The final verse of the final song on the album speaks of a vanishing point and the closing of eyes which brings closure to this story.