I blew off work one day last week and stretched out in the sun on the porch next door with a 40 and the Oceanographer album. On Leaping From Airplanes was something I'd been meaning to tell people about for months (since January, at least), and I let it slip far behind a list of priorities that never really existed to begin with. After a few sips of two-dollar deliciousness, I made myself an omelet, too, like Q and his boys did in Juice.
Oceanographer's second release works best in seventy-degree spring weather, when one has retreated to bottles of Private Stock instead of any semblance of public duty. I discovered this when I was nearly pissified on the neighbor's porch. The Brooklyn via Texas five-piece rarely breaks quiet post-rock levels during On Leaping From Airplanes, wading neck deep in hi-hat-heavy pop structures in lieu of bullshit library-dork noodling crap. There are only a couple guitarists in Oceanographer, but it sounds like they dealt Les Pauls to the whole goddamned neighborhood. Most moments are filled out with the trailing, dense delay of Mojave-mode-Neil Halstead-type licks and soaring augmentation in the shape of viola, synths and vibes.
Singer Jeremy Yocum shares vocals with multi-instrumentalist Eric Elterman, bouncing somewhat mournful harmonies off each other and phrases such as "On the second floor, she's all resplendent glory/ If I spoke to her she'd bore me." When I get past this beaut, I've decided to drop a little rich, sugary Private Stock into my already runny eggs (again, just like Juice) so that before noon, I can be promptly shit-faced and ready for bed.
"Junebugs" begins in straight melancholic piano form, and the band whirs on a little further back behind the mix of vocals. There are a lot of cymbals, and Yocum's melody is bright and lovely, countering the snare rolls and reverb around him. It's toward the end of the record, and though a few songs fall out of this full, fleshy range midway through the tracklist, all the energy has returned here, as well as for the slovenly, sun-kissed harmony rush of closer "Take it and Run."
How did I get to this point? Bailing on work, beering myself up and urinating off the neighbor's deck while he's at work, aiming my healthy stream of piss at the mailman? I blame Oceanographer. And my delicious eggs, runny with malt liquor.
"Stations" MP3: live acoustic version
