Pacific Ocean Fire
From The Station To The Church We Are Under The Same Stars
Sorted Records

A couple of days before this album actually came into my hands (or, to be precise: my mailbox), I received an SMS (is this proper English?) from our beloved editor, telling me that something really exciting was on its way. What he was referring to, was of course this album, and my expectations were starting to grow immediately. I was not to be disappointed.

This is the Leicester-based quartet's second long player, following their split 10" EP together with Don's Mobile Barbers. POF's musical universe can be characterised as a wonderful mixture of popular music, to be very imprecise. The typical lo-fi sound would easily have fit into the Elephant Six-label, with lead vocalist Jon Bennet's beautifully unpretentious voice as a main characteristic. Their influences varies from pure power pop in the opener "Summer Engines" (which actually ends in typical 70s disco rhythm!), Neil Young-meets-Hank Williams-Americana in "Honky Tonkin' troubled Times", while their overall psychedelic sound is on its most significant in tunes like "An Arrow For Yr Heart".

The biggest strength of this album, however, is the overall quality of the eleven songs - all written by vocalist Bennet. I've been listening to From the Station... over and over the last month, and it is almost surprising what a stayer it turns out to be. The official release is set to 4th September. Hopefully it will appear on more than my top-five-list of 2006.

Copyright © 2006 Håvard Kløften