Sarah Blasko
What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have
Low Altitude
By Doug Wallen
The world didn’t need one more ocean-themed indie album, but it’s hard to stay mad at Sarah Blasko. Ostensibly just another pretty-voiced multi-hyphenate who’s easy on the eyes, she emerges as a fascinating figure on her second album. Her songs are dreamy yet rendered in crystal clarity, and the sad edges around her singing do a lot to offset its sweetness.
Brought up in the music scene in and around Sydney, Australia, Blasko collaborated on the album with Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie and previously recorded in the studio of Crowded House’s Neil Finn. Her first album, The Overture & The Underscore, was produced in L.A. with Wally Gagel (Eels, Folk Implosion) and, like the new one, relied on a rich musical partnership with songwriter Robert F. Cranny.
Blasko’s tunes are so easily digestible because she doesn’t overdo any aspect: neither the upbeat nor downcast moments go over the top, even when a gospel chorus creeps into the end of “Showstopper.” Her knack for nuance agrees with a production sheen that is warm and slippery, finding strange new terrain between baroque piano balladry, willowy folk, dreamy electronics, and steady rock propulsion. You’ll hear Radiohead as often as you will Feist and Regina Spektor.
“[explain]” commences with spare and simple piano, adds Blasko’s rich vocals and warm horns, and ultimately builds to insistent swaths of strings and a booming sort of Greek chorus. “The Garden’s End” takes a dark stab at indie rock, while the opening “For You” is gauzy with synthesizers and effects. The centerpiece “Amazing Things” finds Blasko’s lyrics critical but resilient, cooling off her bitter observations with the benefit of time and space. It’s conventional enough to make gains on indie-minded radio but offbeat enough to keep us guessing.
Like fellow Aussie songstress New Buffalo, Blasko reaps intimate moments from an atmosphere that’s not altogether reliable. The contours are always shifting on What The Sea Wants, every song swinging towards a different mood and destination. Maybe, then, the ocean theme is less a choice than a natural conclusion.
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