The Musical Concern
My Sad Captains
Here & Elsewhere
(June 14, 2009 – Stolen Records)

I yawned at first. Another jangle-fruit band with a predilection for the California sun. Whoopti-doo. Somewhere along the way though, without any great awareness on my part, things changed.

True enough, the first three cuts lead down an all too familiar beach path. But a closer, longer listen reveals a more adventurous musical stroll.

The opener, “Great Expectations” could very well be an outtake from The Velvet Underground’s Loaded sessions. While the fourth track, “Hello Bears” turns slightly brooding with a tad of David Bowie thrown in for…well, because sooner or later everybody scootches Ziggy.

Through synthesizers, acoustic guitars, the occasional guy-girl unison vocal, and horns (synths again?) we wind up at the end of an exceptionally well done and deceptively subtle debut album. “Building Blocks,” an instant indie-pop classic, turns up in the penultimate slot, as if the Captains are saying, “There you have it; we could’ve done it all along.”

Based in the U.K., the band takes its name from the same-titled poem by British poet Thom Gunn. The opening lines seem to shed light on how this collection of songs unfurls:

One by one they appear in the darkness: a few friends…
…How late they start to shine!


JH