Sea Wolf sails on White Waters
October 22nd, 2009 by Flint
Alex James Church is a nutter.
When Stanislaus was released and I was all madly in love with it, I figured it would be an amazing taster from the new Sea Wolf album. Turns out it wasn’t, it was just a session bonus track that won’t be included on the album. Which brings us to today’s question, why on earth not?
That said, it’s not like White Water, White Bloom is without high points of its own, even if we’re not getting the brilliant sophomore breakthrough we were expecting.
Occasionally when listening to White Water, White Bloom you can’t help but feel that this here is our new Bright Eyes, now that Conor Oberst is planning to release one more album next year under the Bright Eyes name and then retire to release more twiddling country pop and other assorted boredom. Here and there Church’s voice could pass up as Conor’s and some songs, particularly during the latter half, vaguely resemble some of Oberst’s calmer, more acoustic moments (albeit without the rambling prose). Amidsts those pieces another small ‘agenda’ reveals its head – the desire to sound bigger. The opener “Wicked Blood” sounds like a log cabin Arcade Fire, “O Maria!” is all big and rocky with some surprisingly crunchy and loud electric guitar, while the title track pounds and chrashes majestically. Somehow these two worlds mix and create something that’s not quite the same as either.
If all this sounds like cheap shots and vague attempts at nailing down sounds in order to accuse Sea Wolf’s second outing of being unoriginal, that’s not the case. If anything, Church and his band should be congratulated – the debut Leaves in the River was, while very good, rather uncharacteristic at times. It had a small whiff of someone inputting a genre and some musical characteristics to a machine which then spew out some damn good songs. White Water, White Bloom on the other hand is an excursion to new waters and a sound of one’s own. It’s an album with a clear intention behind it to expand the band’s sound and to craft an identity for themselves. An intention that quite frankly also succeeds – White Water White Bloom has the sort of personal warmth that the occasionally a bit sterile Leaves in the River lacked.
Sadly White Water White Bloom almost sabotages itself with some quality control quibbles. When it’s great, it’s great: the title track, Wicked Blood, “Dew in the Grass” that’s this album’s “You’re a Wolf” in sheer blissful earworminess, tender and quiet “Orion & Dog” and leisurely strolling “Turn the Dirt Over” are all either equal or better to previous Sea Wolf moments. Then for some weird reason White Water White Bloom seems to lose all its momentum as it starts approaching the final steps and the last four tracks offer merely moments of the similar captivating force that the preceding album did, flailing and flopping rather leisurely with no sight of the regal majesty of the former album. The closing “Winter’s Heir” isn’t much of a good closer or even near the album’s other heights but it’s swell enough and manages to leave a better aftertaste from the album than if any of the preceding three songs had been charged with the task.
This leaves us with an album that’s one of those cases where I’m rather glad we don’t really do numerical ratings on this blog. White Water White Bloom is a definite step up in many cases and contains half an hour of good-to-brilliant music, but as the album reaches a close it decides to throw its hands in the air and run away screaming with less-than-interesting songs, causing White Water White Bloom to leave the reviewer with some conflicted opinions. But like said, it’s still a step up in many prospects and in several occasions even exciting. White Water White Bloom makes you want to watch the band’s future efforts even more carefully: hopefully the next album will truly nail them down as an act to fall in love with.
(Hopefully that time they won’t leave things like Stanislaus out of the actual album)
MP3: Wicked Blood
Tags: Sea Wolf