Snowblink are purveyors of tranquility. The last two albums from the Toronto/L.A. duo Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Goldman, 2008's Long Live and 2012's Inner Classics, were steady productions of sublimely soothing sounds that found the pair softly tangling folk and electronic elements. Like its predecessors, new album Returning Current is a blissful ride; the entire album, as the album art so perfectly reflects, sounds as the world does when you're underwater: soft and calm.
Returning Current is divided into "dayside" and "nightside" halves that, despite the polarizing names, have just subtle differences. On "dayside," Snowblink are wide-eyed, taking in everything the world has to offer. "Will the goodness we have witnessed stay good for centuries?" asks Gesundheit in "How Now"; it's a "goodness" that takes on a new meaning in the following track, "Exotic Bird," when she coos, "Someone drew a hot bath the day we met and it hasn't cooled."
As darkness settles in, Snowblink experience pain ("Why'd you have to have a body?" sighs Gesundheit in the chorus of "Foothills"), struggle with domestication ("Wild Here") and yearn for a clearer future ("Second Sight"). But even these more troublesome emotions are treated in the same calm fashion as those felt in daylight. For Snowblink, life starts anew every morning.
On Returning Current, Snowblink return to their lush ways and beg you to dive in.
(Outside)Returning Current is divided into "dayside" and "nightside" halves that, despite the polarizing names, have just subtle differences. On "dayside," Snowblink are wide-eyed, taking in everything the world has to offer. "Will the goodness we have witnessed stay good for centuries?" asks Gesundheit in "How Now"; it's a "goodness" that takes on a new meaning in the following track, "Exotic Bird," when she coos, "Someone drew a hot bath the day we met and it hasn't cooled."
As darkness settles in, Snowblink experience pain ("Why'd you have to have a body?" sighs Gesundheit in the chorus of "Foothills"), struggle with domestication ("Wild Here") and yearn for a clearer future ("Second Sight"). But even these more troublesome emotions are treated in the same calm fashion as those felt in daylight. For Snowblink, life starts anew every morning.
On Returning Current, Snowblink return to their lush ways and beg you to dive in.