I’m all about genuine emo rehashes, and The Sea, the Sea are one of the few bands going at the moment that completely rehash mid 90s emo to the nth degree. And I love them for it. This 12″ just oozes the rehash! Musically they have all the right elements, and the packaging is right up there (bizarre messy screenprint on a piece of recycled cardboard) too. They can even wave the ex-member card (ex Bev-Clone!!).
The first track is completely amazing, mixing spoken male + female vocals together over the brooding build ups. The guitar twinkles, the drums are gently persuasive and the bassline bubbles. The male singer gets more wrought and closer to tears with each passing moment, before the track suddenly piles on the noisiness, the male singer starts sobbing his heart out whilst the music spirals around in it’s melodic chaos and the female vocalist sings sweetly. It’s a great combination. Yeah yeah, Shroomunion and all that. Easy name to bring up in comparison. The second track brings more of the same, the male vocalist starts out in floods of tears before they introduce a trumpet and the song works up into a brief Indian Summer-esque guitar workout with the guitars swirling all around. There is an inordinate amount of crying on this track. Aces! We are treated to “Tempting the Archer” to finish up, the dark and downbeat intro again recalls all your mid 90s favourites, you’re just waiting for it to build up and kick off. Which it inevitably does.
Anyway. AMAZING! That said, the record loses emo points for being coloured vinyl. What the fuck?! Still, if I only ever could buy records that sounded like this, I wouldn’t care at all. I love this shit!! Saddest Landscape will really have to cry more on their next LP to regain title of most teary band in 21st century emo!