4 out of 5

Label: 54’40 or Fight!

Produced by: Zeno Gill

Unassuming.  Schooner sidles into your daydreams, nibbling at an Elephant Six-y sense of haze but without the sometimes overwhelming psych callbacks; percolating in Eleventh Dream Day organic flourishes of noisy distortion; suddenly breaking out into a Who-like stomp for some precious minutes.  Hold On Too Tight is a great album; Hold On is a great experience, bringing in a start-to-finish sense of completion that’s lacking on a lot of discs, an aspect that’s solidified by the slinky sequencing as it segues from fuzzy memories into knob-twiddling noise, sudden punk anthems, then fading back into reverbed riffs.

But it’s all happening on what feels like a slightly uncertain whim: that unassuming quality is the band playing a half-step behind their emotions, somewhat surprised when they suddenly congeal into something more immediate.  The tone is thus fairly open-ended – its not clear of were laughing, or reminiscing, or facing the darkness with a wry smile.  And those immediate moments are responded to with a retreat into that laid back sound…

So while the emotions are a mite inaccessible, the consistency makes it work.  Like a friend you get to know whom others find inscrutable; the strange dream you end up welcoming the familiarity of.  And, admittedly, a more emotive Schooner might not be the same band at all, so I’m happy to take the album as is.