Even by the time that I have written out the band name and track title, I like The Sea At Midnight. A lot! Words are emotive, titles suggestive…or at least they are when in the hands of people who understand their power… and there is something in the scope and poeticism of those nine opening words which already paints big pictures and launches grand ideas. A great start!
And then we get to the music, and that just reinforces the feeling. Dark gothic spirals of richly resonant guitars, brooding bass urges, confident and to-the-point beats and a vocal line which is both impassioned and worldly. Many bands ploughing such shaded and emotive furrows feel the need to introduce fantastical elements and otherworldly undertones, but this is the sound of someone finding mystery and majesty in the real world just by looking higher, further, deeper than most. Why invent such wonders when they are all around you?
Oscar Wilde famously said, “We are all in the gutter but some of use are looking at the stars.” Had he been born exactly a hundred years later, been intoxicated by post-punk music rather than classical poetry and favoured the Squire Jazzmaster over the fountain pen, he would have definitely written songs just like this! Probably.
[…] emanating from the musical box. And that was exactly how I felt even before I had got to the end of We Share the Same Stars, my first taste of the Sea At Midnight’s wonderful sound.Most music you are drawn to has an […]