Fjord Rowboat

Under Cover of Brightness (Roxton)

By Jodi Root
Published: June 25th, 2010 | 7:00am

I have a really hard time deciphering bands that identify themselves within the shoegaze genre. It seems rather limiting, yet is supposed to give off some sort of dark, mysterious image. Maybe this is the reason my first listen to Fjord Rowboat’s Under Cover of Brightness was anything but memorable. With each additional listen, however, the formulated subtle excellence that tightens this ten track collection slowly started to reveal itself.

Amid a clamor of soft percussion, heavy reverb, and sleek guitar work, it’s truly Craig Gloster’s vocal abilities that polish the overall product. Gloster utilizes his vocals as his most powerful tool, adapting to the soft, dreamy vibes found on “We Are on Time” and turning up the power in the more rock driven jams, such as “When I Speak of Violence,” where he sounds similar to the Whigs frontman Parker Gispert. While the lyrical content stems from a rather cliché and predictable level—“I turned my back on love / When it turned its back on me” in “Cottonwood Glacier,” then later opening the next verse subbing “love” for “hell”—it fits the overall image these dudes are trying to set. Dark, yet sensitive, and though it’s not the most original, it’s catchy enough to forgive them for it.

With repetition, Under Cover of Brightness creeps like an unexpected subtle hypnosis, gripping its listeners, winning them over with their Interpol- and Doves-like haunting sounds. Even by creating songs this quiet, Fjord Rowboat manages to make a pretty damn big splash, creeping through the heavy waves with their steady determination and ethereal consistency.

__

Fjord Rowboat official Web site

Fjord Rowboat MySpace page