ALBUM OF THE WEEK: A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Sea When Absent
A Sunny Day In Glasgow are back with their third LP Sea When Absent – a new chapter in the sound of the sextet whose members span the globe.
Album Reviews | Released
A Sunny Day In Glasgow – Sea When Absent
(Lefse Records)
4 out of 5
Sea When Absent is more than a fitting title for the third album from A Sunny Day in Glasgow. With its members spilt by well over 10 time zones and five seas, it seems the absence of face to face human connection from this sextet has made the musical heart grow ever fonder.
You would think that an album, of which the majority of its writing process is completed through email and phone correspondence, would be largely disjointed and incoherent. However, Sea When Absent is the most abundantly well produced, written and thoroughly enjoyed record from A Sunny Day In Glasgow. 2009’s Ashes Grammar and the following year’s Autumn, Again, were jarred chimes of pop electronics smothered by watery reverbed vocals.
Here all of these identifying factors of old A Sunny Day in Glasgow have been removed. We now find a band that puts vocals and lyricism at the forefront and has beefed it up with a harder rock edge. It’s still fun though, think of serum injected minions and you’re in the right ball park.
Bye Bye, Big Ocean (The End) is our first introduction to this new sound. It opens the album with swells of distorted drawn out chords and murmured croons from Jen Goma and Anne Fredrickson against a textured marching band pelt. It’s an angelic rise to full band empowerment, with a reminiscent punch of a candy floss Crystal Castles.
Things take a trippy turn at Crushin’, as we’re met with all kinds of dreamy waves of R&B infused surf pop, it’s even met with an acid laden Purple Haze solo amidst its middle. It’s something that’s continued into MTLOV (Minor Keys), a jubilee of girlish love all peppered in some 80s synth flair and low-fi high grade.
Sea When Absent is an intelligent take on a new dimension to pop rock. There’s the heavy belters like Things They Do To Me and Oh, I’m a Wrecker. Then there’s the psychedelic infusions that intertwine the new A Sunny Day in Glasgow cosmos, with a re-envisioning of the staple synths of this albums predecessors and the new grunt of a full band play toy.
Goma and Fredrickson shine beautifully here and take centre stage of A Sunny Day in Glasgow. This is something that will no doubt trouble the bands original songwriters – Ben Daniels and Josh Meakim – as for seven years this project has been their creative stronghold. Now it seems there has been a siege from across the seas that has been lost by its forefathers, and its new leaders have made this a new community that’s more fruitful and dynamic than ever before.
David Sullivan
