Sea Wolf Album: “White Water, White Bloom”

Taking the name from Jack London's 1904 novel, The Sea Wolf, Sea Wolf is the incarnation of the musical ideas of singer/songwriter Alex Church. While Church remains the sole composer of every song on this second full-length release for Sea Wolf, a large number of musicians contributed to the creation of this album including Lisa Fendelander and Theodore Liscinski who both toured with Sea Wolf following 2007's Leaves in the River.

White Water, White Bloom opens with "Wicked Blood," a track very similar to "You're a Wolf," the song that put the band on the map, but orchestrated on a much larger scale. This new, expanded sound may be due, in part, to the band's new producer, Mike Mogis. Mogis is best known as one of the chief musical contributors to the band Bright Eyes, a band Sea Wolf has often drawn comparison to.

The addition of a string ensemble to many of the tracks found on this album makes already poetically beautiful songs even more pleasing to the ear. Songs like the title track, "White Water, White Bloom," seem to take ideas from bands like the Decemberists and make use of feature instruments which help to tell the story being told in the song. Church has made a great number of improvements to Sea Wolf's sound since 2007 and with his talent for song writing, Sea Wolf will no doubt become a well known name in the music industry in the years to come.

It may be a long time before Alex Church is selling out large venues with his music, but Sea Wolf will earn a much larger fan base in every age group with this album. For anyone looking to give White Water, White Bloom a listen, this late September release is perfect for a drive through the Adirondacks this fall as the leaves change.

Similar Artists: Cat Stevens, The Decemberists

Track Suggestion: The Traitor

Never a disappointing word or note coming from Alex Brown Church or his band and White Water White Bloom is no exception.

This album, like the one before, is well crafted and sets the tone for new bands of the Indie genre. Sea Wolf sounds like a near cousin to Cold Play in terms of the artist's creativity and inventiveness. I plan to buy each new album as they come out.

I have been looking forward to this album for a few weeks, ever since I heard Wicked Blood. If you're familiar with Sea Wolf, then White Water, White Bloom won't surprise you too much. The same tight melodies and restrained manner from their first album are still present, although WWWB is a touch heavier on the drums and string arrangements. If you're new to the band, then either WWWB or

is a great place to start.

3.5 stars

I feel that there are two things that I need to state right from the start.

#1. I absolutely love pretty much everything Sea Wolf has done prior to this.

and

#2. I've only listend to "White Water, White Bloom" twice in its entirety.

With that said, I regrettably have to say that I'm fairly disappointed with their latest album. I know the word "disappointed" gets thrown out there a lot. Everybody seems to be disappointed by everything nowadays. But I can't really think of any other way to put it.

There was something about Sea Wolf's debut album "Leaves in the River" and its preceding EP "Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low" that was, for lack of a better word, enchanting. Singer/songwriter Alex Brown Church's mellow vocals were front and center with the excellent instrumentation never overwhelming his beautiful lyrics.

I had been reading that he decided to assemble a full band and that this new album was going to have a bigger sound. This really didn't seem like a bad thing until I started listening to the album. Its a lot louder and a little more in your face than his previous releases. Neither intimate nor haunting like "Leaves". In that album you could pretty much make out each and every word in those songs. In "Bloom" the lyrics seem to get lost under the heaviness of some of the songs. On top of that I felt that the songwriting wasn't nearly as affecting (to me personally, anyways) as his work in "Leaves". This is NOT a bad album by any stretch of the imagination. There are a lot of quality songs and not a bad one in the bunch. The title track is damn good. But the whole album just doesn't stand out like its predecessor did. With "Bloom" Sea Wolf lost some of its mystique. Hopefully it'll return the next time around.

NOTE: Find "Song of the Magpie" by Sea Wolf. Augusten Burroughs commisioned them to read his latest memoir "A Wolf at the Table" and respond with an original song. "Magpie" is that song. And its one of the most genuine, heartbreaking songs I've heard in a while.