Summer Above
Label: Burnt Brown Sounds
Length: LP
Rated: NONE
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Summer Above
The pace never picks up past the speed of Sunday drinks on Summer Above. On this lethargic debut, singer Marie-Claire Balabanian delivers like a half-asleep Tracyanne Campbell, if she’d passed on Camera Obscura rehearsal to huff nitrous and float around on a raft – jammy closer “Chlorine Fields” even has a “Marco … Polo …” chorus. Summer Above is stoned but paranoia-free; lullabies “Midnight Sun” and “Stockholm” harbor little more than analog organ tones and arpeggiated riffs for comedown appeal. The bass barely props up “Midnight Sun,” and Kate Walsh’s sax wraps it up before they have the chance to get any louder than Lou Reed on “Jesus.” Save for the sparse use of tape delay machines, Speck Mountain finishes the album with conventional elements, as if passing out on the couch is inevitable and band-recommended.
This article appears in Oct 3-9, 2007.