Anything worth doing requires commitment. It's what I tell my daughter on the way to swim practice. I was never particularly good at following that advice; but over the last almost two years, I've gotten much better at it.
The latest album from New Jersey via Brooklyn via New Jersey band Accidental Seabirds, The Greenpoint Spill, is a nice lesson in commitment. Frontman and songwriter Jesse Lee Herdman displays a commitment to an aesthetic that defies easy classification. The now full band (Accidental Seabirds were formally a Herdman solo project) committed fully to this record, producing a collection of seventeen songs that comes in at over an hour. And it's a commitment on the part of the listener in these days of digital music to settle in, hunker down, and spend that amount of time with this record. In each of those cases, though, the commitment pays off.
The Greenpoint Spill takes its title from one of the largest oil spills in U.S. history -- three times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill -- located in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, former home to the members of Accidental Seabirds. The estimated size of the spill has doubled since its discovery 35 years ago and clean-up continues to this day. The title could work on a few levels as a metaphor, I guess: the spilling out of songs and ideas, maybe the growth of the album itself into something so large, even rebirth and renewal.
Following the non-musical interlude of "Metensarkosis," "Shipwreck" opens the record. Herdman's vocals ride on top of an acoustic guitar-anchored arrangement that, coupled with the song's lyrics ("We'll swell with the sea"), gives the song the feel of being tossed on the waves.
"Bright Red" is probably the album's most conventionally structured song. Piano gives it the hint of 70s power pop; but, like much of the record, the song grabs that influence and plays with it a bit, turning it into something recognizable but slightly askew. "Isabel" is an almost bluesy rocker, and there's the acoustic prog of "Luvuhu (Last Feast)" and "A Pool of Pianos and Violins."
All the songs here are musically and lyrically pretty complex; and while it's fine and perfectly enjoyable to just listen an take in the songwriting and musical talent on display here, I think it takes a little bit of commitment to get all of the detail and nuance that The Greenpoint Spill has to offer. It's worth it.
Accidental Seabirds will be at Asbury Lanes for the release of The Greenpoint Spill on January 10th. True to the band's attention to detail and -- yes -- level of commitment, copies of the CD will be available at the show, packaged by the band in hand cut, sewn, and silkscreened sleeves "upcycled" from cardboard six packs.
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