Bodies of Water - Is This What It’s Like (2021)

“Bodies Of Water's music is a slippery conflation of punk spirit, folk expressionism, bombastic theatricality and old-fashioned testifying. It's like a church social gone horribly awry..."

Once purveyors of the kind of super-sized indie rock favoured by the likes of Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene, David and Meredith Metcalf return (alongside Alice Lin and Kyle Gladden) with some new percussive twists on Is This What It’s Like. Album opener and immediate highlight Every Little Bird bursts open into desert rock riffs and disco grooves; Far, Far Away delivers on its noirish backroom jazz; and Back In The Canyon rides a sparse rhythm and rippling vibraphone to a state of grace to show a band not lacking for ideas or inspiration. The presence of some more quotidian fare does lead to an uneven listen however: it’s hard not to wish they’d pursued their bolder inclinations throughout.