DANGERS OF THE SEA - Dangers Of The Sea

While we wait for a new Midlake album (which, truth be told, comes into being under the darkest of omens, for various reasons), those nostalgic for "The Trials Of Van Occupanther" and, further back, for America's "Homecoming" and Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" can find comfort in the debut of Danish outfit Dangers Of The Sea, genuinely accomplished (as befits a record coming from those latitudes) but also inspired.

The band's somewhat monochrome character (though only in artistic-expressive terms) is in fact swept away by a series of beautifully crafted, evocative songs.

Frontman Andreas Bay Estrup shows off a convincing impression of Neil Young on the melancholic "Mine To Keep" (what would "Parachutes" have sounded like if it had been born on the other side of the ocean?) and turns "Ventura Highway" into a desolate, moonlit, frozen landscape on "Light" - in which he then sets the choral crescendo of "Your Time Is Wasted".

But it's not all desolation and melancholy: there are also plenty of openings in pure Seventies style (the excellent "Take My Hand", "Show Some Mercy"), not to mention tracks with an unexpected groove (the airy, elusive "Turn Around", which может recall Other Lives, and the easy despair and carefree hope of "Everything Will Be Alright", with its edgy guitar-and-drums arrangement).

A few overly fussy harmonic progressions here and there ("When The Curtain Falls", with a flute solo), always delivered with assurance though - there's nothing left to do but let yourself be guided along Denmark's lonely roads.

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16/10/2013