Essex Green - Hardly Electronic

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 17 / 7 / 2018

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If you have read any of my reviews here for the past few years (Well, have you?), you might have noticed that I have left my beloved indiepop more or less behind. But that’s not always the case, and the Essex Green are one of those exceptions that keeps coming back. It’s been twelve years since they released their latest album, ‘Cannibal Sea’, and since then the three core members (Christopher Zither, Sasha Bell and Jeff Baron) have been busy doing other things and moving around the US. I honestly didn’t expect a new album from Essex Green, as I thought they had split up by now. But I’m really happy that they didn’t. If you have listened to any of their previous efforts, you know what you’re in for, as this hardly is a big departure from their sound. You get some country pop, some folk pop, some indiepop – and it’s all very good. The two songs released prior to the album, the opener ‘Sloane Eanger’ and ‘The 710’, are both classic Essex Green tracks, one with Sasha singing and one with Christopher singing. But the album’s highlight is really the third song, ‘Don’t Leave It in Our Hands’, which has a prominent bass line and a war cry chorus to finish it all off. It is something like this album’s ‘The Late Great Cassiopeia’ (a song from their amazing album ‘The Long Goodbye’, released back in 2003). It’s actually one of their best songs ever, if you ask me (and I hope you do). All in all, this is a great comeback from this former Elephant 6 band, and it actually made me dig out their old albums again. Not many indiepop bands do that for me nowadays…

Track Listing:-

1 Sloane Ranger
2 The 710
3 Don't Leave It in Our Hands
4 In the Key of Me
5 Modern Rain
6 Catatonic
7 Patsy Desmond
8 Bye Bye Crow
9 Waikiki
10 January Says
11 Slanted by Six
12 Smith & 9th
13 Another Story
14 Bristol Sky

Band Links:-

https://en-gb.facebook.com/theessexgreen/
http://www.essexgreen.com/
https://twitter.com/theessexgreen
https://www.instagram.com/essexgreen/

Label Links:-

http://www.mergerecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Merge-Records-88476979019/timeline/
https://twitter.com/mergerecords
https://www.youtube.com/user/mergerecords

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