MUSIC REVIEW: SEA WOLF - 'WHITE WATER, WHITE BLOOM'

Developed Sounds & Themes on an Album That Shift's the Season's Wheel

By: Erika Paget

September 21, 2009

(Dangerbird Records) There are two things happening on September 22, 2009: the release of Sea Wolf’s sophomore album, White Water, White Bloom, and the first day of Autumn. The overlapping of those two events may be just a coincidence, but it’s incredibly appropriate, because if anything is going to properly usher in the crisp air, multi-colored leaves, and cool breezes of Fall, it’s going to be this album.

The follow-up from the 2007 debut full-length, Leaves in the River, White Water, picks up on the same achingly sincere lyricism and well-crafted indie-folk sound we’ve come to expect from Sea Wolf (also known as Alex Brown Church and company), but expands on them to paint an even lovelier, heartfelt portrait of love and loss. It’s a record that rings decidedly autumnal — an outcome, most likely, due to the fact that Church wrote this record while in Montreal, Canada.

The album opener, “Wicked Blood,” begins with a cacophony of stringed instruments that eventually gives way to the familiar guitar and drums, now with the harmonic accompaniment of violins and piano. The meshing of sounds under the repetitious phrase “There’s a glimmer in the rafters” make the track a perfect opening to the record. It’s very indicative of what you’ll hear: much of the same sounds from the other records but with a much more varied and lush orchestration. White Water is perhaps the perfect combination of Leaves in the River and the 2007 EP, Get to the River Before it Runs Too Low. There’s a bigger feeling to this record, but the essential sounds don’t stray too far from Sea Wolf’s first two albums. White Water takes the acoustic qualities of the EP and the more experimental sound choices of Leaves and combines them to create something that is both familiar and new.

Much like seeing an old friend, you recognize the face but take note that some things have changed. They’re welcomed differences -- ones that ultimately make your experience that much more enjoyable.  Country-folk song “Orion & Dog” has a very Elvis Perkins feel to it, but Church’s magical storytelling qualities make it a song all his own. “Dew in the Grass” and “O Maria” are both heavy-hitters, with their constant, driving percussion. “The Traitor,” with its drum beat and guitar-playing reminiscent of the first few notes of M. Ward’s “Chinese Translation,” is another standout track.  ”The Orchard” is a softer tune, with Church’s guitar against a backdrop of piano and lilting woodwinds. It’s a song about love, as evidenced by its beautifully sincere lyrics: But I’m not afraid/of all that space/’Cause everything I need/ is written on your face. It’s perhaps the most obvious product of the romance Church encountered while crafting this record.

White Water, if anything, is like a musical documentation of Church’s life and what he encountered while living and writing in Montreal. It’s a beautiful album -- one that is simultaneously light and heavy, and melancholy and uplifting, not too much unlike the season that seems to have inspired it. So to Autumn and White Water, I say: Hello, old friend.

Standout Tracks: "Dew in the Grass", "O Maria", "Chinese Translation"

For Fans Of: The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse