Anna Webber Photo
Christian Sands.
“Good Morning Heartache,” the opening track on Christian Sands’s latest album, Embracing Dawn, begins with a warm, gently unfolding gesture from the piano, an easing into consciousness. But then there’s an insistent ping from somewhere else. Something’s off, something’s wrong. A beat settles in, heavy and lethargic, with strings adding extra weight. It’s an exploration of a state of mind, in which maybe everything will be okay in time — but it’s not okay now.
Embracing Dawn is “a cinematic narration of the stages of grief,” according to accompanying notes. It’s a “breakup record” that Sands wrote while “experiencing the hurt that only a sudden absence of love can deliver.” He crafted the album as “a group therapy session, a guide to healing, and an understanding that Sands’s deeply personal angst could apply to any person who has lost a partner, a job, a loved one, an opportunity.”
The immediacy of the emotions, and the ability to comprehend them while feeling them so completely, is on full display in the compositions across the album. In some ways it’s not so much a narration as a cry of grief. “Divergent Journeys” begins with a tumultuous theme before tumbling forward into a searching, questioning set of musical ideas, full of shifting tempos, textures, and timbres. Mirroring the emotional swings of uncertain times, the music reaches an accepting stasis that is beautiful in the moment but never lasts long. “Ain’t That the Same” rockets along as an urgent waltz rooted in the blues. The melody in “Thought Bubbles I (Can We Talk?)” begins with an air of contrition that soon begins to doubt itself, a complex combination of emotions that the musicians unpack with growing energy as the tune progresses. The shimmering “Serenade of an Angel” is the sound of a very bittersweet memory, of a great time that can’t be had again. “MMC” bursts with frenetic energy that captures both the determination to move on and some of the busy energy one might use to distract oneself from the problems at hand. “Thought Bubbles II (Do Not Disturb)” struts on a straightforward, keep-your-head-down groove. “Braises de Requiem I (The Embers Requiem, Mov. I)” aches with the sadness of finally letting something painful go, while the final song, “Embracing Dawn,” thrums with a bruised acceptance.
Sands’s compositional strength of creating pieces that are accessible and emotionally complex — with string arrangements by Yuma Sung and Andrew Joslyn — are aided throughout by a thoroughly empathic ensemble: Sands on piano, Yasushi Nakamura on upright bass, Ryan Sands on drums, Marvin Sewell on guitar, Joslyn on violin and viola, Eli Weinberger on cello, Ross Gilliland on contrabasso, Warren Wolf on vibraphone, and Grégoire Maret on harmonica. It all adds up to an intense listening experience, and one that offers catharsis and understanding to a troubled soul.
The lo-fi group All the Pretty Horses — Austin Traver on vocals, guitar, keys, and bass, Brian O’Meara on keys and vocals, Jake Fucci on bass, John Zaccaria and Pasquale Liuzzi on drums, Brenna Colangelo and Rachel Kosa on vocals, and Bronwyn Reeve on cello — offers another kind of direct emotionality on their new album Witches Up No Mountain Switches Down No Valley. On the anthemic opener “Frances,” Traver sings of a connection he can’t quite make: “When Frances meets me in my backyard / This song will fill her heart / Her eyes stare into mine / As I reach the chorus line / The flowers I’ll put in her hair / She didn’t care / Because to her this life is a game / Someday I’ll see it her way.” The song opens outward as it goes.
“Voicemail” conveys quiet devastation on a swinging waltz (“You pulled the plug and you’re not missing much / Your voicemail picks up, you’ve been dead for a month”). “Bong” pairs a lilting melody and a sluggish groove, the smoke and its effects in one. “T.V.” is both catchy and disorienting, a musical hook pushing its way through the noise. “Sunshine” finds the band at its heaviest, offering a rugged hope (“I will try to define that line / I can’t do this for my my whole life”) even as it talks about heartbreak. The album closes on the lush “Slipping Through”; “Oh no we can’t / Hold it in our hands / It’s slipping through like sand / You wouldn’t understand,” Travers sings. But the music suggests that, after a spin through Witches Up No Mountain Switches Down No Valley, we might.
Compared to Embracing Dawn and Witches Up No Mountain, Mighty Tortuga’s most recent release, Self Titled, comes in like a blast of optimism. Its opener, “Let Me Down,” starts on an unashamed hook of a guitar part. The lyrics may speak of disappointment, but in fine emo tradition, the band — Mike Krische on vocals and guitar, Jacob Berberich on guitar, Jameson Stock on drums, and Kevin Tiernin on vocals and bass — makes music that’s written to party to. “Losing Sleep” charges forward on interlocking rhythms and a sweeping chorus. “Fall in Lust” is built on a chiming guitar part that anchors pulsing drums and lyrics that unspool like a confession. “WIthout a Doubt,” “Through Your Teeth,” and “I Wish I Could Tell You” give the album a run of straight-up rockers that would make for a propulsive live set, whereas the stately pace of “Better Left Unsaid” lays the ground for the album’s closer, the grand “Out of Reach,” built on cascading voices, lush guitar, and a pulsing rhythm section that gives the song an insistent heartbeat. Like Christian Sands and All The Pretty Horses, Mighty Tortuga says its emotions out loud.