FUTURE OF THE SEA

I've had good luck this year simply sifting through the best of 2023 lists, and Plank's FUTURE OF THE SEA has been one of the most pleasant surprises so far. As a fan of interconnected melodic lines, odd time signatures, and multi- textured music, the openings songs of this album hit all the right notes for me. In fact, I would rate the first five songs as some of my favorite math rock ever, to the point that I'm pushing my band to try out these songs and take inspiration from this album in our songwriting. My favorite is the song "Red Tide" which is in 13/8 but is a total groove. (I feel like I say that alot about prog albums I like - the ability to make odd time signatures groove induces the approving stank face every time). The timbre combination on this track is somewhat unique - classic synth sounds combined with distorted but not djenty guitar rather than big echo cleans. "Longshore Drift" is another track that does an excellent job of combining the nerd factor and the feels - prog at its best.

The first half of this album is up there for my favorite so far this year. However, we then get to the 6 part "Breaking Waves." This suite is quite good, but diverges from the sound they established on prior songs. It seems to be a survey of psych genres, with doom textures, post-rock, a bit of heavy riffage, but a lot less math. It's all well done, and flows from section to section seamlessly. But there's just a little less adventure, a little less risk, and definitely less nerd. Listening to earlier albums, one can see that they have a pretty broad range of styles, and perhaps they were unwilling to let go of certain aspects of their sound. Given that, the choice to separate the album basically into two coherent sides is a good one. It's just that for my taste, side 1 is a lot more interesting.

I would encourage all fans of instrumental psych and math rock to give this at least one full spin. Not everyone is going to be blown away but I think at least a few such fans are going to be very very pleased.