asked for attendance of less than 50, the amount the venue was capable of holding. He performed in a corner of the room with his eyes closed and left immediately afterwards. The performance was noticeably sparse; Elverum did not use amplification, and played only his acoustic guitar. Music critic Eric Grandy described the performance as "heavy and awkward and weird" yet "supportive and cathartic and necessary", taking into account the crowd's emotional reaction to the material. "Crow" was the first track to be released, and appeared on the charity album Is There Another Language? in January 2017. The opening single, "Real Death", was released on SoundCloud on January 25, 2017; the second single, "Ravens", was released on February 15. Its promotional video consists of camcorder recordings of Elverum and Castrée. Both singles were listed by Stereogum as the best song of their respective release weeks and included on Pitchfork lists of the best songs of the month. He spoke to numerous press outlets while promoting the album but said these experiences were more akin to talk therapy than to a typical public relations campaign. After giving around five phone interviews in a single day, he said he felt "mentally drained". Live performances In April 2017, he undertook a brief, solo acoustic tour of North America, followed by another in September 2017. They were held in small venues, such as concert halls, churches and theaters. Elverum omitted some album tracks as he found them too emotional to play live. He played a number of then-unreleased songs, including the title track from his following album, Now Only. That September, Elverum performed "Ravens", "When I Take Out the Garbage at Night" and "Soria Moria" in the New York office of Stereogum. The tour was extended to include Europe in November 2017. While Elverum was performing at the Jacobikerk church as part of Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht, a sound engineer unofficially recorded the set. Elverum liked the recording so much that he released it in 2018 as the live album (after). The April and September-to-November tours were well received, with critics commending the intimate settings. Complimentary reviews were published in The Independent, the Evening Standard, Now Toronto, and Exclaim!. ''Pitchforks Quinn Moreland described the concert at Christ Church Cathedral as "a wake—a spiritual sensation that was amplified by the venue, a temple". The performance at Chicago's Thalia Hall was recommended by Chicago