The Tea And Cake

The Bowery
Firekites
LP, 2008
3.5 stars 4 stars

What a nice album. Nice in the way that teapots and cold days spent indoors are nice. The tone of The Bowery (named after the abandoned building it was recorded in) is definitely set in winter or autumn - cold, quiet months when people have plenty of time to sit around and reminisce. Musically, it's a rich, melancholy set of folk-pop songs, with various stringed instruments, hushed percussion and just a tad too many handclaps. As I said, it's nice. I read elsewhere that members of this group play in other bands such as The Instant (a great Aussie post-rock group also out of Newcastle), and that group's fingerprints are found in the electric flourishes that dust many of the songs. Tim McPhee's breathy vocals are particularly good - you can see why The Sea And Cake chose them as their support act (I imagine local fans of The Sea And Cake will no doubt make up most of Firekites' fan base). The Bowery is a smart, absently-catchy album with some beautiful moments but, like the long rainy days we're starting to get in Melbourne - always welcome at first - after a while it may become just a little too much of the same.

Hindsight: "Too much of the same" - I take that back. This album has taken up a four-month residency in our bedside CD player, its soft, melancholy tones the perfect recipe for a good night's sleep (Saturday September 20, 2008).

Artwork: A

Published in mX, Thursday May 8, 2008.