Spring saw the return of Pennsylvanian duo Sea Offs with a new record, What’s the Point? Core members Olivia Price and Rashmit Arora were joined by a whole host of musicians on different instruments to create a rich, atmospheric sound that traverses the folk/rock gamut. Price’s vocals provide the backbone to the release, her mournful voice providing the emotional anchor around which the instrumentation can flourish.
And flourish it does, varying from track to track to make a delightfully multifaceted record that never quite settles into one niche. Songs such as ‘Runaway’ and ‘Unfound’ provide the polished melancholy of Daughter but with small twists, be they traditional instruments like flugelhorn and cello, or even subtle mathy undertones. ‘Occhiolism’ pushes further into rock territory, the vocals rising to frantic, frustrated shouts, while ‘Strawberry’ struts and swells like a dream of false confidence, before ‘Joshua’ utilises field recordings to accentuate the lonely feel. The voices are shrouded in a gentle ambient hum, sounding like old family videos played through a TV in the next room. Price’s vocals, meanwhile, stay even, emotions ironed flat by a wistful distance.
You are a ghost inside
An attic I left behind
Poison that tastes like wine
I made up my mind
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The variety continues. The slow-burn of ‘A Leap Too Tall’ sees Arora take over vocal duties, the track unfurling into a digital ballad fit for prime-time radio, while ‘Avenoir’ is the complete opposite, an experimental interlude of warm instrumentation and a recording of pages being turned. But, while closer ‘The Pining’ brings us back to the sad dream folk of the opening tracks, we didn’t need reminding. Every moment on the album, from the dazzling highs to the locked-away lows, is threaded not just with an unshakeable sense of isolation but the equally persistent suspicion that things need not always be this way. In a way, What’s The Point? answers it’s own question. Communication is its own way out.
What’s the Point? is out now and you can grab it from the Sea Offs Bandcamp page, including on CD.
