Weekly > Reviews
Husky Rescue - Ship Of Light
Ok what’s it going to take for the UK to sit up and finally listen to what we’ve been preaching for the last seven years? Electroshock therapy? Public flogging for anyone that walks past the album in HMV? Or do we have to pay Simon Cowell to star ta programme called Husky Rescue Factor?
Despite critical acclaim across the board for the bands two long players they had released to date, they don’t seem to be transferring into record sales and popoularity in this country, something that surprises me even more being as a nation we are quiute receptive to scandinavian music in general.
Either way Husky Rescue (the best band in Finland and in my eyes – one of the best in the World) are back with a third long player that again has a subtle change in direction from them, but will once again delight existing fans and hopefully pick up one or two more stragglers in the lifeboats marked ‘good music’ on the side.
Where as Country Falls (the debut) was a chilled out dream of ambient folk pop and the sophomore effort Ghost Is Not Real had a haunting almost fairytale quality to it, this time round they’ve upped the accessibility a notch and given the beautiful instrumentation a touch more of an electronica feel.
While it starts with the intro of a minute long ambient track, it’s an album that demands attention from the twinkling, yet punchy Sound Of Love right through to the majestic album closer Beautiful My Monster. Inbetween and including those tracks we have a much more personal album lyrically, yet one that is offset with moments of instant gratification in the music.
As with a lot of great music though, what at first seems simple and easy on the ear, it turns out to be a trick to some degree. While the songs never lose their appeal, you will find the more you listen, the more depth they have, you’ll listen to a track like Fast Lane which is one of the bands quickest tracks in tempo and find you’d missed the jazz/blues soaked guitar riffs or you hadn’t realised quite how cinematic and moody When Time Was On their Side is.
- Husky Rescue
- Ship Of Light (2010)
- Category: Album
- Label: Catskills Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 25 Jan 2010
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesYou’ll also wish that everyone making shiny electro-pop could take a leaf out of Husky Rescue’s book and deliver a darker edge to it like they do so brilliantly on We Shall Burn Bright, or that the prog rock bands who bore us with almost instrumental noodling would tip their hat to Grey Pastures, Still Waters and realise that these sort of semi instrumental tracks can be fabulous in the right hands and with the right instruments.
So there you have it, they’ve done it again for the third time running, delivered a stunning album that gets better with every play and if the other two are anything to go by will age just as gracefully, which is a huge achievement in itself.
Have your say...
Comment Guidlines
You must be logged in to post a comment. Go Login or Register first.
We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.