Bodies of Water
A Certain Feeling
Secretly Canadian
A Certain Feeling, Bodies of Water’s sophomore set, picks up directly where their debut left off. There’s still no other act in the indie rock spectrum that comes close to their lush and operatic turn at folk-pop. The opening “Gold, Tan, Peach, and Gray” is full of the epic instrumental bombast and massive four-part harmony that typified their previous release. It’s a formula that the band feels obviously comfortable with, with tracks like “Keep Me On” and “Darling, Be Here” playing fairly close to the vest. Think Sufjan Stevens, but with more of a willingness to rock. Bodies of Water excel at this stuff, but they’ve already released an album full of show-stoppers.
Thankfully there are some left-field entries throughout the disc to make things interesting this time around. First, “Under the Pines” shows the group dipping its toes into prog territory via cheesy sci-fi synths. These sounds are sutured to some lovely dust bowl folk, creating a song as close to Martian country/western as we’re ever likely to hear. The white-boy funk that shoulders its way into “Water Here” is an adventurous choice, one that doesn’t quite succeed. The much better “Only You” strips away 90% of the sonic onslaught and gives the spotlight to Meredith Metcalf’s wonderfully wounded vocals.
Large-scale indie bands have already made great strides toward the mainstream in the past few years – see Arcade Fire and The Decemberists – and Bodies of Water, with Secretly Canadian behind them, should start seeing some attention thrown their way in the wake of A Certain Feeling. Deservedly so.
Secretly Canadian: http://www.secretlycandian.com
