Shipping News - Three-Four
(Quarterstick)
Here, under the most improbable of circumstances, the Shipping News have in fact delivered their finest record. Over the course of a year, the band released three limited edition EPs, which have been compiled, along with a handful of new tunes, onto this release. Further, the songs were not recorded by the band as a band, but individually by individual members without discussion or input from the others. How can it possibly work, you wonder? Well, for historical precedent, I suppose there is The Beatles.
The answer is, I don't know how it worked, but it certainly did. Though it does not necessarily sound like a cohesive album in terms of the songs all being of a time and place, it has an incredible unity. Perhaps it is the sound of freedom. As each member had been released from the confines of the group, free to explore withersoever he wilt, that each have found, independently, the same destination. A truly remarkable achievement.
Most of the songs on Three-Four reflect the maturity that the players have developed. That is not to say that they are limp, turgid, or staid, but they have a focus and a simplicity, free of extraneous motion, that is the result of refinement of craft over time. Songs like "Haunted on Foot" draw out a theme, reworking it, growing more intense over time, but naturally, and without cheap theatrics like dramatic shifts in volume or tone. Others, like "Paper Lanterns," lay a simple foundation, in this case rolling bass and drums, which leave wide open space into which guitars, organs, and other detritus flow, pop, and burst. Still, others, like "Haymaker," simply kick your ass. The best track, however, is Jason Noble's intense yet transcendent "We Start to Drift," in which a fairly rapid keyboard rhythm is offset by paced drumming and the trance-like chant of the layered vocal, which creates a sensation of motion and still at once, like floating in the center of an eddy.
The best thing about this record is, however, a sense that the Shipping News have fully moved from beneath the shadow of those other bands, which, though worthy, shall remain unnamed. Previously—and this very well may be projection on my part—Shipping News records seemed inevitably tied to the members previous or concurrent efforts in other projects. Perhaps due to their growth as songwriters, perhaps due to uniqueness of sound in these songs, or perhaps due to the freedom of this projects parameters, the Shipping News finally feels like its own entity: completely separate from any other (except for their name).
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