Solomon’s Seal – The Sea, The Sea – Review
Posted by Staff on May 6, 2009 – 10:45 pm -
Release Date: June 2nd, 2009
Record Label: None
Genre: Folk
The weather here is rainy, and the extended forecast is not to change. The trees struggle to blast buds open, to hang leaves from lonely branches, and red pills from towering maples blanket the streets. Birds chirp after returning from more southern climes but remain hidden in trees and bushes, setting up guarded nests as homes for summer. All of it is organic; all of it is a derivative of living matter; all of it is a relation of elements together for a limited period of shared time and space.
The same is evidenced in The Sea, The Sea, a collection of folky, finger-picked ballads written and recorded by Simon Petty – under the alias Solomon’s Seal – and produced by Seth Rothschild. Petty’s vocals could share a table at a Greenwich Village cafe with Iron & Wine, Frightened Rabbit, and Elliott Smith and his guitaring affectionately borrows from the 60s folksters who would idyllically be busking on the outside sidewalk – Donovan and Dylan, perhaps Simon & Garfunkel. The styling echoes Eddie Veddar’s Into The Wild soundtrack: It is an ever-changing journey laden with piano keys and bows of upright bass. The Sea, The Sea is an album for ears that would rather hear a tune fly from the lips of a man fearing not the elements, be them rain, wind, time, or humanity.
Standout tracks (Do not presume by this analysis that the record as a whole is not outstanding.) include I Built A Fire, on which sweet parallel third harmonies and canon-like timpani rolls are the overt highlights. Trick Of The Light is a full-band, jazzy invite to “follow me down to the coast” and is sonically reminiscent of Sondre Lerche or Ben Folds Five. A love song to his instrument, In The Strings ties love and life in a knot with six strings. Golden Haze is a vigorous lashing, advising the listener to not “let the time slip away” and to not “do as I do, do as I say”.
The defining track of The Sea, The Sea takes the listener to the high-tide line of a wind-swept beach. Criticism and analysis – while it would be nothing but glowing – cannot serve this track it’s just desserts. The lyrics of the lullaby’s final verse are its decisive vehicle:
“Look at you. You’re still scouring the sea.
And it occurs to me we’re wasting our time.
I can’t believe what I hold in my hands
While I try to find a diamond in the sand.
So I told the sea, “You can keep your ships.
You can keep your shells and your contraband.
Take the pearls from the oysters’ lips
‘cause I found my diamond in the sand.
I found a diamond in the sand.”
It is all in front of you. It will not be washed away by rain in the forecast, nor will it be blown away with the buds from trees’ branches. The Sea, The Sea is a summer home, a nest. And Solomon’s Seal with fly you there. ~Erik Paul Schwab
Score: 4.75/5
Track Listing:
1. Solomon’s Suite
2. Trick of the Light
3. Sleeping in the Car
4. State of the Union Address
5. Murder of Crows
6. Golden Haze
7. I Built A Fire
8. Part of the River
9. In the Strings
10. Diamond in the Sand
11. Burnt Raisins
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