Sea Change album finds Beck bummed, but refreshingly so.
Most albums with song titles like "Lonesome Tears" and "Already Dead" usually fill us with whiny stories of heartbreak that seem just barely above the maturity level of high school teen drama and what Jenny said to Sarah in study hall.
Sea Change is very different. Beck's songs of heartbreak, wonder, and feelings of isolation are dealt with not just in maturity but with a gentleness that is very refreshing in the days of angsty emo.
Of course, it has the obligatory, generic orchestration that is common on such records, only here they aren't so generic. None of that swooping, melodramatic, and "Hey, didn't I hear that exact same sound on the last five albums I bought" sentimentality is found here. The strings actually play - get this - more than the same old chords over and over again. They complement Beck's subtle guitar playing wonderfully. Without them, most listeners would probably find the album to be a bit sleepy.
The picture one gets from Sea Change is that of Beck sitting on the side of a road with dead grass and plowed wheat fields around him. Just looking out into the flat stretches of Earth with the blue sky and its patches of white creating the perfect backdrop for his soft musical reflections.
The songs cover basic emotions of questioning, personal feelings of isolation, and, of course, lost love. As he states in "End Of The Day," "It's nothing that I haven't seen before but it still kills me like it did before."
If you were a big fan of Midnite Vultures and his take on a completely different type of human experience, you may find yourself bored with this. But if you're a fan of soft, mellow music, this album may very well find you in high spirits. Granted, they will quickly become subdued spirits, but you get the point.
Other coverage for this album
The Phantom Tollbooth 2002Reviewed by Jon SingerThe eccentric star is so well-respected in the music world that he's in a unique position: Rather than wondering if Beck can keep up with the latest trends or if he still "has it," fans and critics wonder what he will do next. Beck is on his own clock not borrowed time. Sea Change, Beck's latest release, directly mirrors 1998's Mutations as an introspective acoustic record. The album stifles the…The Phantom Tollbooth 2002Reviewed by Jeffrey OverstreetSea Change is a gorgeous, sprawling album of heavy-hearted introspection. I think it's Beck's finest album and, as is so often the case, it comes out of a time of heartbreak and trouble. Beck's new and best album may as well be dubbed the first album of a daring duo: Beck and Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich. Godrich seems liberated by the slow, sparse arrangements of these heartbreak…Similar sounding releases
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