Where The Land Meets The Sea

Listen For The Gulls EP

Written by: TL on 31/08/2009 20:05:30

If you skip ahead and read below the bands that I have put in the For The Fans Of section of this review, you might, if you know those bands, suddenly find yourself with a slightly baffled expression on your face. This is good, because that reflects what my face looked like when trying to think of what to compare this band Where The Land Meets The Sea, because judging from their debut EP "Listen For The Gulls", while I can think of many bands using similar elements in their sound, I can't think of anyone that quite compare.

So let's try to break this down shall we? To start out, take an ordinary rock band setup and add some eighties style synths and a female vocalist (who to my ears sounds a bit like the chick from the now defunct The Fire Restart). Then imagine them playing songs that start out sounding like up-beat, bouncy, indie-pop, only to become noisier, verging on the area of minimalistic post-punkers like the British We Were Promised Jetpacks, and then throw in some male backing vocals and some restrained passion like that of nineties emo bands like say, The Get Up Kids or Sunny Day Real Estate?

That's the long description of course, and if you're impatient then you could just as well take my word for it, that these guys sound pretty cool and exciting. The first two songs on here, "Title Bout" and "Tiny Maps" follow pretty much the structure I described in the previous paragraph, and while they aren't too easily memorable, they are easily positivity-inducing, loaded as they are with the kind of energy that undoubtedly will make your feet tap and your head bop. Both are easily topped by each of the three following songs though, and while I could try to explain, I'd much rather recommend that you give them a listen (all the songs are currently streamable on the band's myspace), because that will give you a much better impression of how well the band utilizes subtle tempo changes to give the songs more dynamics and overall punch.

Preluding three of the songs are fuzzy little samples, presumably from movies (or maybe recitations of poetry?), and while this has been known to do more harm than good to loads of bands, here it works really well, adding character to the record, much in the same way a certain clip did to a very certain New Found Glory song that some of our readers may remember.

Now, with such a distinctive sound, and songs as nice as I've described, it's rather obvious that this review is going to end well for Where The Land Meets The Sea. Indeed, I originally started writing with a 7½ in mind, because while this is really interesting, it's also a typical debut record, on which the good ideas could've been given a bit more room, if the band had a bit more experience and confidence to their name. However, as I listen to it while writing, it gives me the same inexplicable warm feeling it's done every time, and I can't help but to think that, given more than these first ten spins or so, this could grow to leave a lasting memory. So here's another notch on the grade scale guys, keep up the good work.

8

Download: All Is Soft, Learn To Swim, Troubled Sleep
For The Fans Of: The Fire Restart, The Get Up Kids, We Were Promised Jetpacks, VersaEmerge
Listen: myspace.com/wherethelandmeetsthesea

Release Date 14.07.2009
**UNSIGNED BAND**

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