SLEEPING IN TRAFFIC - PART ONE

This album served as my introduction to Beardfish. It caught my interest for a variety of reasons - the quirky album art, the intriguing name, the fact that it was labelled as "Part 1", the funny name of the band, and the buzz I was hearing around them.

The buzz was well deserved, I must say. This Swedish outfit really knows what they are doing.

The first track did not really blow my mind when I first heard it. Okay, obviously, it's just a short instrumental that leads into the album. But I still have a strong appreciation for it, because it will appear again on their next album in what was, to me, an unexpected way - very nice foreshadowing. Helps pull the two albums together nicely.

It then moves on to Sunrise, which proves many things about Beardfish and basically acts as foreshadowing for what was to come in the album. What we have here are excellent lyrics ("Sunrise, I think these rays of light will kill me", etc.) to highly emotional vocals near the end ("She won't miss me when I'm gone!"), combined with excellent quiet and loud keys and guitars that give the song a lot of contrast and make it very pleasant to hear.

The album, for the most part, ranges from songs like that, that are pretty much all excellent, with very little music that could be considered filler. The album definitely has highlights, songs that work well on their own, but it plays quite well through as a single unit. The emotion on this album seems to me to be somewhat of an angry/melancholy feel, but with more underneath - and being able to convey that emotion is perhaps Beardfish's strongest feature.

Over time, almost every song on this album has got stuck in my head at least once. This may be Beardfish's most melodic album (of the ones that I have heard), for each song will catch your ear on the first listen through.

High points for me are Harmony and Roulette. Harmony comes across to me as a blues-twinged song that perfectly demonstrates what is so good about Beardfish on this album, from the quiet moments to the great instrumental music. Roullette tackles the theme of not believing in God, yet with a touch of humour that takes the edge off of the topic in a good way.

The album concludes with Same Old Song (Sunset), and it is more of the goodness that we have heard so far, including the great guitar, emotional lyrics, keyboard textures, and great singing. It is definitely a song that left me with a strong desire to hear part 2.

There are really no poor songs on this album, but overall, it is not quite at the masterpiece level. There is nothing here with quite the 'oomph' to push it over the edge.