"The album's inspirations and song titles like "Nighttime," "End," and "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" may suggest gloom and doom, but Sides is a work of grace more than sadness, and lighter moods prevail on tracks including the reassuring if softly warped "Bend," and "Panes," whose broad-ranged palette includes high, spectral synth tones, marimba, and booming low drums".