Record Label: S/R
Genre: Indie Rock
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com
The first thing I noticed when I received Fjord Rowboat’s album and press package was that they were local (Toronto). And it made me wonder if I had heard them before. As I started listening, there was something oddly familiar. Part of it was the band’s ability to utilize the better pieces of their musical influences, among them Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, and Mogwai, but there was something else. I looked on their website at their previous shows and finally figured out that I had seen them live. Unfortunately, I probably didn’t think much of them at the time, which is a huge shame. But then again, this album is something special, something that probably couldn’t be captured live.
Leave it to local super-producer Andy Magoffin (Hidden Cameras, Constantines) to help Fjord Rowboat create such a wonderfully textured and sonically exciting album with brilliant flow and tone. This is the type of local band every city wishes they had, a band that could potentially open for a touring band and blow them out of the water. However, I think the album itself speaks more than the band could ever do live; coupled with the sparse blue of the cover art, this disc has a late-night-mid-winter-heater’s-not-working sound that evokes all the right kinds of feelings. They definitely know how to create mood with jangly guitars, sparse keys and pianos, and gentle basslines.
It’s rare that I get an album for review that I willingly listen to more than twice before I write anything about it. With this one, I listened to it in a variety of different places – alone at night in the basement, in the car with my girl, on my iPod. I have to say, it sounded best in the dark. Fjord Rowboat’s mid-tempo rockers and lead singer Craig Gloster’s hushed shoegaze vocals just didn’t feel right on a sunny day. Not that it’s a bad thing. I wouldn’t listen to the Flaming Lips on a cold winter day.
Fjord Rowboat have every right to get noticed and praised. This album is not one to look over. They also make me proud to be a Torontonian.
Bottom Line: Fantastic debut. Moody indie rock with great production, and high relistenability.
Notable Tracks: Can’t See the Sun, Simply Stood, Through The Morning Light
Overall Rating: