Bonnevill
Pelican
Instinct
So it seems by the third track, “Camoe,” that Bonnevill has drowned any optimism towards an ultimately happy ending. Perhaps rambling like countrymen with a little bit of classical inspiration, Bonnevill trade guitar licks with dour violin scrapes to create a serene, but ultimately unsettling environment. Like sitting on a mountaintop mourning the states of your discontent, Pelican is the perfect soundtrack to wash away under the mellow guise of folk and blues.
It seems like the conclusion can be predicted for each and every song, but in the murky waters that this disc treads throughout, it is nonetheless unsettling. A requiem for an unsettling dream, Bonnevill blends the surreal scores of post-mortem audio with a quiet indie sensibility that at often times could be mistaken as meandering. Each and every song adds pyre to the fire that burns like a remembrance for a sound long gone. Although the quality wavers, the sad tone throughout could inflict the torch-song sensibility in all of us without all the vocal heartbreak.
Instinct Records, 26 West 17th Street, #502, New York, NY 10011; http://www.instinctrecords.com
