Seagull is not a band nor a boy, it is a sound that comes out of your speakers to remind you of your first love and how much you thought you knew.

That description comes from the Two Bright Lakes page in the bio for Seagull, a band, sorry, a project from an Australian foursome that create sombre, grey, expansive skies through music.  Some may feel grey skies could be a bad thing, but just let this album suck you in and drag you along the horizon of the folk inspired soundtrack.  Seagull gets it’s writing and vocals from Chris Bolton (who’s bullet point fact sheet would highlight that he is classically trained in the use of a guitar).  Bolton definitely sets the stage with ominous sounds, laid back vocals and is generally your tour guide through the sounds of his residence that is Seagull.  Along for the trip comes Ed Bolton, Kishore Ryan and Michael Zulicki to assist in filling out the sounds that keep me (and soon, you) coming back.

Don’t get me wrong here, there are times of energy, so don’t think it is all about taking too many Ambien and drifting off to sleep.  Great examples are tracks “Baby” and “Joy”, which could almost be a post punk tracks a la New Order/Joy Division.  Some tracks walk the fence between electro-indie and simply indie ballad, such as “Half Asleep” which is one of my favourite tracks on the release.  A release that actually saw the light of day many months ago (April 2008), but is seeing more love over ’round these parts in the last couple of month I believe.

If I have to single out a couple of tracks from “Goodbye Weather” of the solid 11 tracks in total – stellar listens include “When”, “Trucks Are Sheep”, “Crow” and the pounding instrumental “Joy”.  I have to say I am glad to have picked up a copy of the album.  To be quite honest, I mostly notices due to the great album cover, I quickly followed with a couple of listens on their MySpace page, which quickly led to a purchase.

Visit Seagull on their MySpace Page, or swing by the label page and even iTunes if you can’t wait to have it sent from the land down under.  Don’t forget about their self titled EP from last year as well; while I haven’t tasted it yet, if it is the start of “Goodbye Weather” it would definitely be finding it’s way to my collection soon.

~Smansmith