I’ve been listening to this album for ages, trying to decide if and how much I actually like it, and it’s still hard. It’s almost like a nice, safe version of lots of things I’ve been listening to for a good while now, and that safety should make it seem a little anodyne, but it doesn’t.  My inner indie-snob feels I should dismiss this for being a bit too lovely and warm and nice, and despite the fact that I find some of it less than gripping and the sea shanty of the title track just a little hackneyed, I am still really enjoying listening to this record despite myself.

It sounds in some ways like what the Decemberists might sound like if they were ten years older, a little less riotous and generally just a bunch of really nice friendly people having you round for a glass of wine.  Just one, though.  There’s no bite to it really, despite some of the lyrical content – “There is no purpose in killing the president, the world is full of fuckers just like him/ sowing seeds of fear and watered with lies, fertilised with shit they spew from within their hearts”.  It’s far from tame, but there’s still something very comfortable about it.

Depression is a tense, treacley song that seems to manage to translate the very emotion of the situation directly into the atmosphere of the song.  Coal-Hearted Woman is light hearted to the point of novelty, and that kind of variability perhaps comes from the fact that the songwriting is spread amongst the entire band, and maybe that’s why I like an album that I am, idiotically, continually surprised to enjoy.

Maybe it’s time I just got over myself a little and confessed that, although it’s not all brilliant, this is just a really good album whether or not my inner indie snob would sneer at me for saying so.  Have some courage man, and stand up to the little troglodyte!

Listing Ship – Archaeologist
Listing Ship – A Sad State of Confusion
Listing Ship – Voice of the Future

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