Overflower - Water On Mars

  by Chris Jones

published: 8 / 5 / 2002

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If you've read even just a few of the reviews I've written here at Pennyblackmusic, my fondness of shoegazer-y, dreampop sounds should be apparent. If you haven't read any of them, then suffice it to say I'm sort of a sucker for fuzz guitars, electronic noises, good drum beats, and whispery lyrics. If you already know the sound of Providence, Rhode Island's Overflower then it could be easy to predict where the rest of this review will go.  You know, something about shimmery guitars, a dreamy tone, male and female vocals, etc (see my review of Should in this month's magazine). I really wanted to write a review like that too, as I think Overflower's music is quite engaging and well crafted.  It's a bit more dreamrock than dreampop, but it's still soft and warm,  maybe a bit more like the Arizona shoegazer/dreampop sound (ala Halfstring) than the UK sound.  There's even a touch of a post-rock thing in there that works out rather well, so why then do I sound like I'm hedging here?  Well, unfortunately the vocals of bass player Marc Bouchard just don't work for me. I'm not sure if my problem is with his voice or if it's just that the vocals are too forward in the mix for me to overlook them.  I can't say he has a bad voice.  I mean it's not like he is painfully out of tune or something obvious like that - I don't think so anyway.  Sometimes it seems a little too dramatic, but it's not over the top by any means.  I'm not sure exactly what it is about the vocals, but to me they just don't fit well enough with the music. Clearly, this is a completely subjective response (as are most, I suppose) and for that reason, i'll say again that I found the music to be quite engaging.  If you too are of the shoegazer/dreampop persuasion, you should give this a CD a listen to get your own subjective response.  Your results may differ.

Track Listing:-

1 Rita
2 Rise and Crawl
3 Water On Mars
4 Thank You
5 There
6 Breezy
7 Tunnel to Shore
8 The Garden
9 Edge of Eyes
10 The Visitor
11 Calling in the Light

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