Grey Oceans is a very melancholy record indeed, though there are flashes of abandon and fun.
Grey Oceans is a very melancholy record indeed, though there are flashes of abandon and fun.
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Possibly their most ethereal record to date; the opener Trinity’s Crying – with its mix of ghostly cries, strange synths and witches incantation is as strange a song as they’ve ever produced and a good pointer to the rest of the set. Grey Oceans is a very melancholy record indeed, though there are flashes of abandon and fun in tracks like Hopscotch with its Tin Pan Alley feel and Fairy Paradise, which opens up to become some lo-fi rave.
Sometimes this is a very smooth record, with lots of space and a lot of languorous instrumentation: Smokey Taboo almost waits for the pluck of the harp to drive it on. And R.I.P. Burn Face is a woozy sing-along with some strange gloopy noises adding tone and weight. The Moon Asked the Crow is about as poppy as this record gets, harnessing a Britney-style stomp to visions of graveyards and a fussy piano part popping up now and again.
In fact, the constant use of (grand?) piano really lends something to the record overall. Undertaker is a beautiful amalgam of cod-folk song and samples that morphs into an early Tom Waits style ballad. Sometimes the piano parts (and you may have guessed that there are quite a number) give the tracks on Grey Oceans the distinct feel of a melancholy Broadway show-tune, 1930s style – heard especially the title track and the brilliant Lemonade.
What more to say? They’re a quality act, and always worth your attention.