Feathery, Indie Dream Pop
In his young life, Ben Cramer’s musical career has already brought him across the country in search of the next gig and musical inspiration. By the age of 24 he has lived in five cities, and played in dozens of bands. Through the course of his wanderings, the young multi-instrumentalist met up with producer Jeremy Griffith. This meeting turned out to be the birth of Old Sea Brigade. In the summer of 2015, Cramer went down to Florida to record with Griffith. The five songs that came out of these sessions are set to be released on January 22nd as the Old Sea Brigade EP.
The EP was recorded in stages. They started out by recording each of the songs purely with vocals and either acoustic guitar or piano, and then everything else was textured over later. This bare bones approach can be felt throughout the EP as the songs emphasize Cramer’s airy voice, trying to make the listener really feel the simple but heartfelt lyrics.
The EP kicks off with “Love Brought Weight,” which was released as a single in anticipation of the EP. The song is a quiet, warm affair that starts out with the type of finger-picked acoustic guitar that has become the staple of indie-pop. Then Cramer’s light vocals come on, delivering his lyrics in a way that sounds like a feathery dream. Light dreamlike music can put people to sleep if the artist isn’t careful, and unfortunately Old Sea Brigade comes dangerously close to that here. The rest of the EP follows more or less in the same suit. In that manner, this album strikingly similar to Americanized Mexican food. It doesn’t really matter what you order because all the ingredients are the same. They’re just arranged slightly differently.
From a musical standpoint, this is a solid album. It’s well produced, the lyrics are steadfast, Cramer has a pretty voice and the instrumentation is adequate. But isn’t that just the thing about the sea of American Idol, vanilla indie-pop that the American music listener is currently drowning in? Is it bad music? Not really, no, but it isn’t good either. The Old Sea Brigade EP ends up being no more than elevator music. You can’t hit a home run without taking a big swing, and this EP is not a big swing. Give us something to cry about. Give us something to feel.
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