Description
Victories at Sea follow the release of two singles in 2019 with their second studio album Everybody's Lost and All I Want Is to Leave. Recorded on the shores of Loch Fyne and mixed in their native Birmingham, the album refines and redefines the sound of Victories at Sea.
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The location of recording has had a marked influence on the album. The vast landscapes of Loch Fyne are there in the grandeur and sky scraping ambition of the already heard 'Quiet House', the changeability of the weather mirrored in the skittering melodies, looming builds and sudden explosion of 'Late'; the shift from calm to cloud to downpour made melody.
The switch from what JP White, lead singer and lyricist describes as being, 'far from the electric daylight of city evenings', during recording to that very cityscape created a tension within the album that confronts this nature seeped creation with mechanics and artificiality.
So, the sweeping melodies and delicate piano interludes of album opener, 'When The Dark', are abruptly interrupted by a crescendo of closing noise that brings to mind the hectic, circular motion of rush hour traffic on Birmingham's inner ring road. Current single, 'Follow You', delivers a seemingly straightforward and direct verse / chorus moment of ear worm brilliance only to abruptly skip and slide into a locked machine groove, the sound of Birmingham's industrial past breaking through the sheen of modernity.
If this sounds ambitious, maybe even a little pretentious, then that is a charge that Victories at Sea are happy to rebut. Everybody's Lost and All I Want Is to Leave was conceived and realised as a statement. A permanent marker of the pinnacle of the trio's possible creation, an honest and direct expression of the collective power of the three band members.
This album is more than a collection of songs, it stands as a collective of artistic work designed at every point to demonstrate a belief in the power of the album, the power of music, the power of words. Something beautiful that would remain forever.
