All Those Ships - Avalanche Warnings

Hear The Track Here

Nope, the water is still cloudy. The puzzles that confronted me when I reviewed Temporary Coma (September 2010) are still as perplexing as ever and Avalanche Warnings just seems to darken the picture further. Is this a bad thing, you may ask yourselves, and surely a bit of mystery is a good thing anyway? Well, sure so maybe I need to explain further. The last track was both acoustic and folky and reminded me - in it's lo-fi way - of many singer/songwriters notably (in the review) Syd Barrett and Terry Reid but I absolutely couldn't make the same claims about this track. I quite liked the shoegaze style of Temporary Coma, even liked the lo-fi, low-key way it came across, and I guess that led me to say 'eh?' to this track - at least initially.

This is a track that took me some while to warm too, but once I did I was able to appreciate the amount of effort that went into making it, even though it doesn't come without some problems. Ahh but this is acoustic and folky innit so stuff like that doesn't really matter does it? Nope, not if you like the sounds that adorn many of the musicians in this genre - at least the more alternative side of it. So, stylistically, this has moved from the almost dated sound of the first track and updated it, and then sent it back to the 1960's for a proper mix.

That's where my initial trepidation came in you see, the first couple of times you play this - if you can get away from the lo-fi argument - musically it sounds like something from a 60's action show with The Ventures drummer sitting in. Said drums actually work well in the track and work pretty well in the intro too, if a little loose. It's the song and it's almost psychedelic feel that finally wins your heart, aided by some lovely vibe and/or mallet work and there is even a fine display of the harmonica too, and if that ain't folk, I don't know what is.

Recommended Alternative Acoustic.