Seafarers is less of a band than a collective, centred around Scottish songwriter, composer, and saxophonist Matthew Herd, and second album ‘II’ is ‘about being a teenager’ as told through the filter of memory and reflection. This means that while some of the songs are comparatively straight narrative recollections of parties and the like, others, particularly in the second half of the album, deal with guilt and remorse. Which adult doesn’t cringe with shame over stuff they did in their youth? It’s how you reconcile with the past that matters, ultimately, and ensuring you don’t replicate those youthful follies later in life.
II is the second release from Scottish songwriter, composer, and saxophonist Matthew Herd’s collective, Seafarers, bringing together friends and fellow Royal Academy alumni and comprising some of the most prominent contemporary voices in European jazz and Celtic folk.
The songs on ‘II’ are beguiling in their melodicism, and are pleasant on the ear.
‘A Disappearing Act’ is a cross between folk, and sparse post-punk, with bedroom production stylings behind the lo-fi drum and synths sounds. Irish vocalist, Lauren Kinsella, brings a blend of melody and emotion to conjure something quite special. Rippling piano and shuffling hip-hop /jazz drums lead ‘Good Beginners’, and there are a lot of nice details in the arrangements, with subtle strings adding texture and depth. ‘Newlyweds’ is a breezy indie tune, while ‘Nathalie’ brings a certain tension with its sparseness and minimalism, its flickering, fluttering percussion, and it’s the percussion that, while in the background, really makes ‘You Can’t Pretend in the Dark’. ‘Submarine’ evokes the spirit of post-rock, but also so much mellow indie and piano balladry, to the point of being a bit Keane – but in context, it works, and is justified.
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‘II’ articulates – lyrically and sonically – a range of emotions, not least of all the pang of regret that seems to be the hardest pull on the gut that emerges from those formative years, and there are taints of embarrassment and shame that never quite leave us.
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