Do you ever pick up an album and have trouble making it past the first two songs? (You may think, by reading this question, that I am referencing an album so awful that you simply pull it from your CD player. However, this question is posed in a different light—the album begins so strongly with such great songs that it takes ages to really get past those first few due to your continually hitting the REPEAT button.) So have you? I have—and the latest to succumb to the curse is the latest by The Little Ones (MySpace), Morning Tide.
The first two tracks, “Morning Tide†and “Ordinary Songâ€, are both top notch. Coincidentally, both also remind me of this year’s Helio Sequence release, Keep Your Eyes Ahead. What’s astonishing is that I dig this so much—I wasn’t all too impressed by the EP they dished out earlier this year. That was called Terry Tales & Fallen Gates and after a single listen it found a comfy home on my CD shelf and began gathering dust. But Morning Tide will not fare the same fate, oh no. It’s pretty damn great.
Time to force myself to let the album run its course…
And oh yeah! “Boracayâ€, like the others, is just as packed with indie-pop and has just a smidge of darkness—enough to once again warrant the Helio Sequence mention. Now would be as good a time as any to compare Morning Tide to Keep Your Eyes Ahead. The Little Ones, frankly, are more upbeat and poppy and lack much of the drone-y guitar found in the recent Helio Sequence release. Not surprisingly, as The Little Ones are a full band rather than a duo, they also enjoy some harmony vocals that flesh out songs like “All Your Modern Boxesâ€.
The rest of the album continues as expected to conclude, again, just as expected—however, the latter half doesn’t quite live up to the power as the first half; that first half is just too good. Morning Tide proves to be a fairly consistent and positive album, and the softest tune of all, “Farm Songâ€, closes the album with something a bit different, though still peaceful.
The Little Ones: Morning Tide [mp3]
[audio:1006_the_little_ones_-_morning_tide.mp3|titles=Morning Tide|artists=The Little Ones]
Chop Shop Records [CD, 2008]
1. Morning Tide
2. Ordinary Song
3. Boracay
4. All Your Modern Boxes
5. Tangerine Visions
6. Gregory’s Chant
7. Everybody’s Up To Something
8. Waltz
9. Rise And Shine
10. Like A Spoke On A Wheel
11. Farm Song
boracay was on the ep that you state is gathering dust.
this review is like all the others. you lopve it! when will fense dish out something he doesn’t love?
You’re right. I rarely write a poor review; however, there are a few exceptions. I am working on being a bit more critical, at least in the “Album Review” section…
“Boracay” was one of the few tracks I enjoyed from that EP.