REVIEW: Divine Sweater's "Deep Down (A Nautical Apocalypse) via Better Company
Boston, MA’s “cutest band in indie” have released their third full length record; Deep Down. I’ve known the Divine Sweater name from online circles but as I so often do I’ve neglected to check out their sound until a record drops in my lap and in this case I’m kicking myself for not doing my homework. Deep Down manages to encapsulate three distinct, yet perfectly blended sounds on just one body of work.
A lot of bands and artists use the ocean as a hyper obvious and visual metaphor but so few of them manage to actually make it visible. What Divine Sweater has done here is make the ocean something you can actually see in front of you with the use of instruments like horns, an atmosphere of synth and bass or beautiful strings over slow picking acoustic guitar. It’s as if I’m staring right into the coast. The second layer of this sound is the overall reflective nature of the entire thing. On songs like the opening “In the Comedown” there is a languishing decision making as if the author is asking the water itself for guidance. This also wades back into the first part of the overall theme by creating a self-reflective mood.
Before the final piece of the puzzle I do, of course, have a couple of critiques to add here. The ocean is beautiful but she only has so many colors, it’s easy to get lost in her waves. If your mind wanders during the record it's easy for the sound to blend into the background as the songs themselves aren’t standing out all that much, it's more the atmosphere. This unfortunately makes an otherwise effective closer “In the Breakdown” less impactful especially if you’re listening to the record on a streaming service where it can get easily washed up by the algorithm feeding you a new track immediately after this is done.
The final piece of the puzzle is this overall timeless feeling of the songs themselves. There is inspiration taken from varying degrees of genres that will make this sound stand the test of time. Whether you hear this in its release year or a decade later I’m willing to bet it will sound fresh to you. There aren’t a lot of highlights, but I believe that makes the record work better as a complete piece of work, ripe to relax and contemplate.
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