Dark Captain, Light Captain - Circles

  by Sarah Mwangi

published: 27 / 7 / 2008

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Review

This four track EP is built around the gentle meanderings of instruments which create sublime soundscapes of folktronica or ambient folk. Multilayered with guitars, woodwind, drums and electronic nuances, Dark Captain Light Captain have produced a humble preview to their full length album. All is not well, however, with this EP as the vocals from singers Neil Kleiner and Dan Carney prove too weak to carry off the high standard that is expected. Trying too hard to imitate the light and delicate melodies, the vocals just end up sounding like a couple of blokes whispering rather too close to your ear for comfort. In fact, when the songs are much more beautiful before the vocals come into play, it’s a wonder why Dark Captain Light Captain felt the need to taint their music in such a way; it’s not that the lyrics are profound in anyway. Illustrating that Dark Captain Light Captain had a vision that their format would be strong enough to work is the title track ‘Circles’ which has moments of Zero 7. How this formula was lost is unsure as an intricate textured melody is interrupted by breathy lacklustre vocals a minute and a half in ‘Robot Command Centre’ with the next two songs following suit.

Track Listing:-

1 Circles
2 Robot Command Centre
3 They Be Underwater
4 Walls