Album Review

Porcelain Raft – Permanent Signal

• 20th Aug 2013

Around these parts, I tend to be the ‘eclectic/electric’ guy that musical oddities filtering through glasswerk get passed to for reviewing.

Which is great, I am treated to a dazzling array of off-kilter noises and experimentations from all manor of eccentrics and geniuses that dwell on the outer rims of the musical environment.

What isn’t so great is when a press release full of promise leads you to an album that simpler doesn’t deliver.

Opener ‘Think Of The Ocean’ seemed to be hailing me, with it’s broken bleeps and eerie atmospherics, overlaid with a haunting, yet genteel, vocal that weaves together to create an artform that is truly special, a rousing off-kilter piece that perfectly encapsulates everything I love about musicians that are willing to push boundaries and yet still manage to plumb their records with emotional depth.

And that is more or less the extent of my praise for Porcelain Raft’s sophomore effort, as from their it descends into a sub-standard impression of early noughties also-rans JJ72, high pitched vocals, afew more attempts at soaring sounds, and yet the melancholy feels mundane.

Perhaps I am being overly critical, it certainly isn’t a bad album, but at the same time, how much can really be said about an album that during it’s running time, you kinda forgot that you’d even been listening to it.

It does however warrant merit on occasions, but any shows of resolve are too little too late amongst a largely inoffensive and direly uninteresting album.

Venue: Permanent Signal
Support Band: Secretly Canadian