Top Ten Albums of 2012 - #7
Sea Wolf's Old World Romance
Editor's Note: This is the 4th in a quasi-weekly series of reviews marking my favorite ten albums of 2012. The 10th edition is wrapped into the larger year-end post I call "The Ho Media Awards", which will be published just after the new year. Stay tuned!
Sea Wolf's second full length was something of a surprise. It's far more approachable than Leaves in the River. Although it placed third in my 2009 countdown, it lost something of its luster over time. It started feeling like a sell-out effort, which made me worry about LP3. Apparently I was too quick to judge, because this third album - Old World Romance - starts taking cues from the first album and leaving the sheen and the theatrics of the second album in the past.
LitR is another one of those albums I love to pull out on rainy days. OWR is similar, but darker and colder. More of an album for snow than for rain (listen to "Kasper" for example and try to tell me you can't feel a chill down the back of your neck).
It lags a little in the second half. And, although this is a weird criticism, "Whirlpool" doesn't feel like an album closer. The statement of the album doesn't end with any kind of punctuation. It feels like it ends in mid-thought. I thought maybe he was forced to use what might have been his closer as a bonus track for some bullshit corporate requirement (iTunes, Amazon, whatever), but I haven't found any extra tracks from this session anywhere.
Album Highlights: The whole album is available on Amazon MP3 for $5. If you want to cherry-pick the best, go for Priscilla, Kasper, and Dear Fellow Traveler.
Sea Wolf's second full length was something of a surprise. It's far more approachable than Leaves in the River. Although it placed third in my 2009 countdown, it lost something of its luster over time. It started feeling like a sell-out effort, which made me worry about LP3. Apparently I was too quick to judge, because this third album - Old World Romance - starts taking cues from the first album and leaving the sheen and the theatrics of the second album in the past.
LitR is another one of those albums I love to pull out on rainy days. OWR is similar, but darker and colder. More of an album for snow than for rain (listen to "Kasper" for example and try to tell me you can't feel a chill down the back of your neck).
It lags a little in the second half. And, although this is a weird criticism, "Whirlpool" doesn't feel like an album closer. The statement of the album doesn't end with any kind of punctuation. It feels like it ends in mid-thought. I thought maybe he was forced to use what might have been his closer as a bonus track for some bullshit corporate requirement (iTunes, Amazon, whatever), but I haven't found any extra tracks from this session anywhere.
Album Highlights: The whole album is available on Amazon MP3 for $5. If you want to cherry-pick the best, go for Priscilla, Kasper, and Dear Fellow Traveler.
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