The Desolate Coast - Without A Planet CD (Double Crown)

The Desolate Coast return less than a year after their groundbreaking and widely acclaimed debut album, Time Slips Away. There are 17 tracks on this album, which is much in the same vein as the first, using the beautiful wet and twangy guitars of surf music, three of them, layered to orchestral heights. When that trumpet comes in, prepare for the hair to rise on your neck. The band seems to be brimming with fresh ideas, and the energy to deliver. Many of the tracks are short vignettes, like the 31 second mournful brass band arrangements of “Dusk on Disto Pibba IV” into the 57 second “Dust Settles”, and feels like a suite. Only two of the songs here reach the three minute mark. The three guitars combine for chimey 12 strings sounds, or tight harmony, and, of course, for stratifications with each part carefully layered and supporting each other. The overall production is a case study in tasteful restraint and the arrangements show respect among the players as they all leave space for each other's parts. “Space Diner” has dreamlike interplay with the light jazz touch of a Bacharach tune. “Save a Horse, Ride a Surfboard” is baroque chamber surf, with the keen pop flavor of a Phil Spector production. “Vanish From Vertigo Point” and “The Wrong Kind of Thursday” will fulfill your trad surf needs. There is just so much to take in! Desolate Coast comes up with more ideas in one song than most bands do on a whole album.

Tracks: Dusk On Disto Pibba IV - 1000 Times Or More - The Depths Of Mariana - Echos In the Ravine - Vanish From Vertigo Point - The Last Shadows Of Summer - Oh, No You Don't! - High Plains Grifter - Lust And Greed - Draculeta - 9 O'Clock Last Week - The Wrong Kind Of Thursday (But The Right Kind Of Thursnight) - Terraforming Without You - Space Diner - Save A Horse, Ride A Surfboard - Beyond The Event Horizon - Dust Settles