12:53pm Wednesday 4th March 2009
Artist - Southeast Engine
Album - From the Forest To The Sea
Label - Misra
Deliciously timeless, Southeast Engine make the kind of music that could have, should have, been made any time since the early 70s - a rock that is about itself only.
Recorded in an old schoolhouse, direct to analogue tape, it is also remarkably organic, like These United States's Crimes.
From the Forest To The Sea follows the debut, A Wheel Within A Wheel, and takes the game on nicely.
It contains their best ever song, Black Gold, a swirling, angry hunk of a song (directed at man's consumption of oil), although that song itself is an outlier in an album that has a theme - (Old Testament) Biblical references abound, with the Noah's Ark flood as its core - picked up and bookended nicely by songs The Forest 1, 2 and 3.
The record sounds absolutely wonderful - like something from Big Pink: harmonies, thick glugs of acoustic piano, guitar and the sound of floorboards vibrating the way that rooms are meant to.
This is an album that rewards some time with its singular vision - it is epic in its own way. Going with the flow of the album is recommended - the music will mean so much more than when picked up song by song.
Rating 8/10
Mike Rea
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