Review: The Essex Green, Cannibal Sea

Cannibal Sea, the band’s third full-length, unfurls like a lazy afternoon peppered with involving conversation.

The Essex Green, Cannibal SeaThe Essex Green is a band you don’t hesitate to recommend to your friends. Innocent, faintly psychedelic, and disarmingly melodic, the Brooklyn trio fashion carefree indie-pop that feels not unlike a warm spring breeze through your hair. Cannibal Sea, the band’s third full-length, unfurls like a lazy afternoon peppered with involving conversation; while the press materials make lofty comparisons to The Byrds, Fred Neil, and The Monkees, as well as modern counterparts The Shins, Hidden Camera, and Jens Lekman, The Essex Green manufacture an organic brand of acoustic-oriented pop all their own. Ostensibly, Cannibal Sea is about “characters…displaying a yearning to break free of the boundaries and constrictions of city life. To escape the darkness and fatigue, to move on to more lighthearted settings—surrounded by water, replete with the spray of the sea, the gentle lift and sway of a boat on the waves.” While it sounds like a conceptual record on par with something coughed up by The Decemberists, the sprightly “Penny & Jack” almost feels like a Rilo Kiley outtake, while “Snakes In The Grass” slithers delightfully from the speakers. Cannibal Sea is a mellow concoction well-suited to fans of cerebral indie pop.

Score: 
 Label: Merge  Release Date: March 21, 2006  Buy: Amazon

Preston Jones

Preston Jones is a Dallas-based writer who spent a decade as the pop music critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His writing has also appeared in the New York Observer, The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, and other publications.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.