Not as calm and collected as I would have wished to have been...
Arrivals and departures --- The Calm Blue Sea --- 2012 (Modern Outsider)
Here, once again, is a band I know nothing at all about, just liked the name and had a quick listen then decided to buy. What I can tell you, from their own website, is that they appear to be natives of Austin, Texas, but other than that their site falls into the fatal trap of assuming everyone who visits it knows who they are, like a Facebook page. I don't, and I can't get even a band resume or biog from their site, which I feel deserves pointing out. You're not superstars yet, gents! If you want people to find out about you, post some bloody information on your website!
I had to dig around on the web and came across a blog, which helpfully informed me that the band are a quintet, and that their names are Chris, Max, Steve, Noah and Jeff, but that's it. No surnames. Jesus guys, you may be a great band but
tell someone who the **** you are! It's really frustrating, having to search so hard for this very basic information that anyone needs, whether they're going to buy your albums, go to your shows or write a review of you. Calm, calm, calm... (blue sea)...
Okay, well that didn't work. Going to their record label's website I get even further frustrated, as here they're trumpeted as a
four-piece, named Chris
Patin, Steve
Bidwell (okay so far) and, er, Kyle Robarge? Taylor Wilkins?What the hell? What happened to Noah and Jeff? And Max? And where did these other guys come from?
Ah, me head hurts! Let's just listen to the music, shall we? Hopefully it'll calm me down.
The album, their second, has only eight tracks, and they're all instrumental. Well, mostly. Sort of. It opens with the title, nice soft piano with swirling synthy sounds behind, simple tune which lasts just over a minute and segues directly into “Samsara”, the piano getting a bit deeper and fuller but retaining the same basic melody. Somewhat similar to recently-reviewed band The Deadstation, there are vocals it would seem, but they're buried deep in the mix, quite echoey and distant, which I think is intentional, so as not to distract perhaps from the purity of the music. They also don't last too long, fading away as percussion hits in and guitar thrums in on the back of it, and the song appears to be slow and laidback but with a certain power of its own.
Piano certainly drives this track, though from the fragmented information I've managed to piece together I can't tell you who plays it, which is a pity. Good guitar work though from Chris Patin, as the tempo jumps and the song gets a good deal faster, mostly on the back of his fretwork and Bidwell's drumming. There's a big, unexpected, almost metal guitar ending to the song, falling back to the lone piano to take it out, and then we're into “We will never be as young as we are tonight”, which again opens on strong piano but this time backed almost immediately by guitar, and coming across as much heavier altogether. The song slows down then about halfway through, keyboards coming in to soften the sound and wispy, ethereal vocals drifting in like morning mist.
Then it all changes again as the guitar ramps up, putting the punch back into the track before it slips back on piano and bass to its conclusion. “Pont des mouton” comes in very slowly and quietly on chiming keyboard notes and soft guitar, then heavy percussion cuts in and the guitar gets a bit more snarly, getting again quite metal in the closing minutes of the track as it powers ahead. Some more fine guitar work here from Chris Patin. “Diaspora” then sort of revisits the theme of the opener, but with ghostly vocals added --- really not sure about this. I don't think it adds anything to the music, in fact I believe it detracts from it. Better if they just left this as instrumental. Nice languid tune though with sort of repeat pattern on the keyboard beneath the piano melody, almost like pizzicato strings in a way. Moving on into “Mary Ann Nichols” we have another soft piano melody with more echoed/faded vocals and some nice guitar lines, another slow song, quite laidback though again that's not true, as Patin fires up his guitar and pulls the whole thing off-course and into heavy metal/rock territory, changing the whole shape of the song, and not for the worse.
“Tesoro”, at least, starts as it means to go on, with big heavy guitar and pounding drums, a pulsating bass line and a nice driving rhythm that pretty much keeps constant throughout the song, and we end on “To approach the Vivian girls”, which is slow and lazy, downtempo and really rather beautiful, with some soft introspective guitar, some echoey, slow drumming and a nice piano line to it. It builds up about halfway with what sound like vocal harmonies and powerful guitar, and fades out quite nicely.
The problem reviewing instrumental albums has been mentioned by me here before, and yet this is not quite an instrumental outing, as there are some vocals, albeit sparse and even then not very discernible. The music can't be faulted, but I would definitely have preferred to have had some more information about the band before writing this, and I just could not find it. I'm not sure whether to take that as arrogance, that The Calm Blue Sea believe everyone knows who they are, or if it's a genuine oversight, though obviously I hope for the latter.
TRACKLISTING
1. Arrivals and departures
2. Samsara
3. We will never be as young as we are tonight
4. Pont des mouton
5. Diaspora
6. Mary Ann Nichols
7. Tesoro
8. To approach the Vivian girls
There are, of course, a lot of these bands around now, and you'd have to ask yourself what makes these guys stand out from the many others out there. I really don't have the answer; they may not be destined to be the biggest band in the world, even the biggest instrumental (or nearly instrumental) band, but I really like this album and I can see them doing well.
How well, only time will tell.