Bodies of Water
A Certain Feeling (Secretly Canadian)
By Jennifer Kelly
Published: July 22nd, 2008 | 9:00am
A Certain Feeling is Bodies of Water's second full-length, and the first to benefit from their big indie label backing. The debut came out on Secretly Canadian last year, but only after it had been self-recorded and released on the band's own label. As a result, the sound is cleaner and more vibrant, more elaborately arranged, and even fleshed out with brass in places. Moreover, band members have gotten more confident on their instruments — Meredith Metcalf is no longer a girl trying out keyboard for the first time on this second album, nor is Jesse Conklin picking her way over an unfamiliar drum set.
Where Eyes Will Pop & Ears Will Blink carried you along on a bumpy road with sheer enthusiasm, A Certain Feeling offers a smoother, more accomplished ride. As before, the band mines an unusual set of influences: the complex vocal interplay and spiritual abandon of gospel quartet music, and the free-ranging eclecticism of Tropicalia. The Tropicalia strain seems, if anything, more pronounced this time — in the glorious brass and drum extravaganza that closes "In a Cave," and the fuzz-encrusted exuberance of "Darling, Be Here." The gospel side comes through in sing-along spirituality of "Water Here," and in "Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey," which bursts from fragility into full-surging triumph.
Indeed, A Certain Feeling builds on the band's previous success, and it succeeds in much the same way as its predecessor; here, as before, when LA's Bodies of Water decides to sing, there are no halfway measures. All four members wail and bounce and harmonize, building complex webs of human sound. The rock band instruments — guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums — almost seem beside the point. There's an infectious enthusiasm at work here, building in the choruses and bubbling up through the verses, a sense of ecstatic release. That "certain feeling" is undeniable joy.
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