Fog at Midnight, EP by Cecada
A tense unease resides amid the otherwise comfortable sounds of Cecada’s debut EP, The Fog at Midnight. At times calm, at times even serene, but always hinting at some impending danger. I credit the brazen confidence it takes to weave together so many subtle eclectic elements without ever abandoning the album’s apparent mission: to aurally render the namesake, midnight fog. It’s a sense of desolate isolation. It’s an ethereal specter. It’s absolute beauty.
Brian Rawson’s vocals stand out immediately, and remain a unifying thread throughout. Among the band’s hypnotic sensibilities, Rawson sings with a vocal lethargy that compliments without being overbearing. Think Boxcar Saints’s Last Things or Califone’s Roomsound disk. Even as the quiet violin on the opener, “Nightimes,” fades into the more traditional four piece setup on “Handspots” through to “Madletide”’s electronic pulse—each beautifully render in their own right—Rawson’s vocal confidence is stunning.
For anyone familiar with my harsh criticism of Scarlet Johansson’s recent vocal attempt, you know that I will not hesitate to condemn overproduced echoes. But, like D.R.I’s Smoke Rings album, the saturated vocals of Fog are a necessary, defining element. Production here isn’t used to mask sub par styles or sound quality, but is rightfully used to enhance the larger mood. Producer Costa Stasinopolis deserves a beer. Buy him one next time you see him.
Following the moody opener tracks, “Sira,” hits with something as close to a pop sensibility as the EP gets, resulting in an optimistic bridger to the disk’s second half. If anything will be stuck in your head from this album, this is it. I dare you to ignore the hook of “I’ll throw out my hands and let ’em.”
Fresh after “Madletide,” perhaps the sound defining track, we’re dropped into the slow, banjo-backed crooner style tune, “Moonshine.” Here we sense the band’s most direct folk influence, and glimpse the emotional poignancy that lurks just below the surface of other tracks. “Moonshine” is the rare reveal of the impending danger I noted earlier.
The EP rounds out with the uniquely guttural bass backed “Elijah.” While clean of distortion for most of the album, the bass takes on just enough dirty character here to tease with the promise of Cecada’s future. This is a band that is just getting started.
Fog is a beautifully structured and emotionally vivid debut, from a group so perfect they could score a fucking sunrise. I’ll settle, for now, to the sounds of Fog at Midnight.
Purchase:
From Snocap through Cecada’s MySpace page
