Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The tenderness of excitement is one that can only be held at bay for so long, eventually you have to give in to temptation, you have to open the box and peer, like a smiling, giddy Pandora, into the abyss and let the magic out. It is a magic, a substance of expression into which falls from the sky with proud and glad tidings the archetype of great bands The Buffalo Riot and their album Pale Blue Oceans.
The giddy Pandora, having already let loose the squalid and the despised, the dull and the ungracious, finds the floating body of hope wrapped around the body of The Buffalo Riot’s album and watches it soar. Impossible to recapture, like Pandora you can only watch it as it gives resonance and steely resolve to the listener. A glowing tribute to the fans of the music, Pale Blue Oceans is strong, deep and bountiful, it gives up its treasures, not easily, but with determination that the listener has to work for it; what is the point in having so good in your life if it comes cheap and free.
By taking the album in and allowing that hard work to manifest, to grow, the band have offered the listener something incredible, something beyond reasonable expectation. To those that have seen the group perform live, this is the culmination of extreme labour, of graft piled high and the toil and sweat of hours flogged, whipped and set upon with creativity and dedication.
The album crashes into the hands of the listener like a comet, in parts too hot to handle, in others the listener might not feel worthy enough to take in the thoughts of such exuberance and yet the come hither eyes, the flashing of a sincere smile is all that is required to breathe in the fresh and stimulating times ahead.
Each track is moulded wonderfully, arranged with precision and in the songs, Water In Your Blood, Hands Full Of Rain, She Breathes In The Air and Rachael, I’m Sorry, that precision is as exquisite as anything you might ever come across in your short time on the blue marble hanging in space.
Albums rarely come out at you like this, they rarely announce themselves with such flavour; nobody is going to mind a jot if you sink beneath the waves of Pale Blue Oceans, for the sea has memory and will soon add you to the gratefully imbibed and storm tossed. Out of this world.
Ian D. Hall