Port O'Brien All We Could Do Was Sing by: Dan Osmolowski Thu:22-May-08 Label: City Slang Year: 2008 WB rating 64 out of 100

The Port O’Brien back-story is the stuff that record label PR departments salivate over. Usually the indie musician’s story is a boring one: band met at high school/college; didn’t want real jobs; rehearsed in Dad’s garage; worked at a fast food outlet; got noticed and signed up; still working dead-end job in between tours but living the dream, nonetheless. But when your latest acquisition got together after working on fishing trawlers and salmon canneries on the Alaskan coast, copywriters’ ears prick up. It all sounds so romantic if you believe the band’s bio, but I’m sure if you asked them yourself, they would cringe at the hyperbole that makes being stuck in another dead-end job sound like a John Steinbeck novel.

So it’s from these erstwhile occupations that songwriting duo Van Pierszalowski and Cambria Goodwin derive most of their inspiration. And it is as good as any seam to mine when it comes to establishing an emotive landscape for the listener to bed down upon. The sea is a harsh mistress and recently the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel, Modest Mouse and The Decembrists have plundered its depths in search of musical treasure; seeking out the mystery and evocative nature that we, as land-lubbers, are infinitely attracted to.

Like the flotsam and jetsam that decorates the oceans of the world, Port O’Brien’s sound is a ragged attempt at rootsy, ramshackle folk-rock inspired by the likes of Neil Young and his modern contemporaries in Will Oldham, Iron & Wine, Bright Eyes and the Silver Jews. The production is earthy and appealing, and never resorts to bombast or trickery to make its point; for the most part, the instruments blend like a live recording. All, that is, except for the unnecessary and syrupy strings. ‘Stuck on a Boat’, ‘Fisherman’s Son’, ‘Don’t Take My Advice’, ‘Alive For Nothing’ and ‘Will You Be There’ all suffer from an attempt to re-create John Simon’s arrangements on Leonard Cohen’s first album or Robert Kirby’s on Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left. Unfortunately, they come across as an afterthought, clearly over-dubbed in an attempt to bring some heart-pull to the slower numbers. They sound cheesy, clumsy, and amateurish and seem to exist purely to fill a sonic void that really isn’t there. It casts some fundamentally appealing tracks, especially ‘Fisherman’s Son’ with its catchy pre-chorus and earnest lyrics, onto the ‘could have been nice but is annoying instead’ pile.

The track conjuring up all the interest for Port O’Brien (in Australia, at least – the song has been kicking around in the States for two years now) is radio single, ‘I Woke Up Today’. Its ‘shouty’, pub sing-along stylings are appealing to be sure; the ‘Rocks’ drum intro gives way to some joyous, sea-shanty, Isaac Brock-like acoustic guitar hyperactivity. It’s the songs that share the same enthusiasm that fare the best on All We Could Do Was Sing. ‘Close the Lid’ is urgent, vibrant indie-rock and ‘In Vino Veritas’ is twinkling and pleasant. ‘My Eyes Won’t Shut’ is a nice slice of country pop where Pierszalowski’s voice sounds relaxed and is not affected by the wonky, off-key, indie-chic delivery that he seeks to pursue on the majority of the album. The band feels most comfortable in this skin but it’s one that is far too fleeting and is buried under the weight of dull, slow numbers or confused, staid and unnecessarily lengthy guitar freak-outs. ‘Pigeon Hold’ and ‘The Rooftop Song’, for example, both seek to harness the power of Crazy Horse but fall well short of that collective’s combination of accuracy and sheer ferocity. Elsewhere, ‘Valdez’s’ four-track production is dispensable and ‘Tree Bones’ sounds uncannily like the Meat Puppets.

In short, there are a handful of very appealing tracks here that would fill an EP destined to generate blog buzz. As it stands, Port O’Brien sit as a young band that need to develop more of a personality that extends beyond informed, rustic MOR indie. Drop the strings, heighten the urgency, ramp up the passion and we might just have the next Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene on our hands.