Drink The Sea has that most unfortunate of epithets appended to it: supergroup. However, while the term may immediately think of clashing egos, super-sized stages, and a budget that could safely bankroll a small nation, Drink The Sea is that most rare of entities: a creative project that is entirely about the music.
That much was obvious on the astonishing double album, Drink The Sea I & II, which emerged as one of my favourite albums not just of last year but of the decade (I can already feel, should the collected members of the band read this review, the cringing). Anyway, as much as it’s tempting to return to that set and wax hyperbolic all over again, happily I have III on which to polish my superlatives.
The album opens with a surprisingly direct assault on the senses. Recently released as a single, just to make sure that appetites were fully whetted, Big Dirty is based around the sort of, well, dirty riff that powered Screaming Trees (with, perhaps, just a touch of Desert Sessions groove), and straight away the senses are singing. As someone who grew up absolutely in thrall to the likes of R.E.M. and Screaming Trees, it’s a sound that is as familiar as home and yet provided its own angle thanks to a stunning production job from Alain Johannes and the ever-building layers that come from having Peter Buck, Duke Garwood, and Alain himself all in the frontline. Hard hitting and incredibly dynamic, it’s one of those tracks that seems to haul you physically into its realm and keep you there, lost in the psychedelic world the band have built only out of their own imagination.
Having kicked the album off hard, Drink The Sea effortlessly switch gears with the gorgeous Sever. Part folk-infused whimsy, part Bowie-esque lounge act, it’s a slinky number that provides a fair approximation of what might have happened had Josh Homme been drafted in to add textures to Automatic For The People and, if that doesn’t have you racing for the nearest record store, I’m not really sure I can help you further. To both my surprise and delight, arcing feedback paves the way for the brisk Between The Teeth, which has enough power in its riff to light up a city. It’s fierier than the first outing by some margin and, while that sense of adventure remains across the album, it surely is good to hear the band simply cut loose and rock.
What goes up must come down, as they say, and having comprehensively set the blood coursing through the veins, it’s Barrett who calms the tempo on Heal, laying down a shuffling beat that leads to a lovely moment of sun-kissed psychedelia that sounds like the Animals filtered through the Velvet Underground. Things turn artier still with the wonderfully percussive Turn To Gold, which finds Lisette and Barrett adding all sorts of off-kilter elements as dirty guitar and what sounds like a mandolin or 12-string lay the foundation for a haunted, Lanegan-esque vocal. Arguably the closest that III has come thus far to the wide-eyed explorations of the first two volumes, it’s a mini-miracle of a song and, were I to listen to only one Drink The Sea song for the rest of eternity, I’d be minded to name this one – you could lose yourself in its rich layers for weeks, especially when the horns come in at the song’s conclusion.
The band continue to explore the fringes of their influences with arguably their most beautiful song to date. Titled I’ll Be Your Shelter, it’s a subtle, wonderfully arranged piece of music that seems to be beamed in from another world altogether.
Having guided the listener by the hand through the wonderful dreamscape of I’ll Be Your Shelter, Drink The Sea lay down a gritty alt-blues on It Makes The Rain Slow that has more than a hint of early Beck about it, the grungy slide guitar and hypnotic pulse of the percussion proving to be oh-so-addictive. The deceptively simple Oh Desire rocks along nicely until a delightfully psych-infused lead cuts across the mix and then we’re into the dense Parisian Voodoo, which finds the band roaming the dark streets of the 18th arrondissement with blood on their sleeves and bacchanalian intent. Reminiscent, thanks in part to Duke’s spoken word vocal, of Barry Adamson, it’s the squealing sax solo that launches the piece over the top, leaving the listener face down in an overflowing ashtray that smells of expensive aftershave and cheap whiskey.
After something so utterly engrossing as Parisian Voodoo, something of a reset is needed. For this, the band reach back to the South American architecture of the first two albums on the skittering Deep As The Sun, which finds heavily e-bowed guitar doing battle with the earthen tones of the glockenspiel. It’s followed by the brief, jazzy Becalmed, which appears to have been built around its sanguine bassline, before the album wraps up with The Rubble King. Another rather lovely moment, it finds the vocal floating on a haze of lost guitar and subtle, probing bass, once again taking us down those Autumnal paths so often walked by Mark Lanegan both with the Trees and after.
Having fallen in love with Drink The Sea on their expansive debut, I’m happy to say that III perfectly complements the first two volumes, expanding upon the existing elements while allowing a few new aspects to creep in. Of particular note are the jazzy explorations that reach their peak in Parisian Voodoo and the absolutely heartbreaking melodies of I’ll Be Your Shelter. Mind you, the whole album could be placed aside for special mention, depending on the mood you’re in while listening, with tracks like Big Dirty and It Makes The Rain Slow showcasing a heavier side to the band that is very welcome. All in all, III takes everything that was great about the first two volumes and runs with it… oh how I love this band. 10/10
