The Tramlines' full length debut easily sails above the local rock rabble just by being in touch with current music. The band's teenage members display encyclopedic knowledge of indie rock past and present and synthesize their own sound from it. This is good because their studiousness pays off in fine moments of Decemberists/Black Heart Procession-style baroque fatigue, where the whole song appears to be sighing like it knows what war-torn year this is. But so much of the album sounds like a project for an AP course in independent music. They're doing everything right: the touch of psychedelia, the pensive lyrics. But urgency, together with sophistication, made indie rock the style to study. And a desperate need to articulate something or do something new is what gave the broken voices, awkward clangings and reelings of their influences beauty and strength. When The Tramlines learn to fuck it up a little, they'll be a dangerous, mature force.
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The Tramlines, "The Bottom of the Sea" (tramlines.com):

The nautical theme interwoven through "The Bottom of the Sea" makes sense: This album is as roiling and topsy-turvy as oceanic waters.

Multihued indie rock that's by turns driving and delicate, "Sea" benefits from three guitarists crafting swelling pockets of drama and dissonance.

The songs here are constantly pivoting in new directions: "Jewelry," for instance, starts as a plaintive acoustic daydream, then the guitars kick in, and the track starts to rumble like an angry fault line.

There are plenty of other compelling moments, such as the pretty, kaleidoscopic swing of "How My Story Started (And Why It's Never Ending)" and the haunting, violin-laced "A Sunken Ship," making this ship far more seaworthy than its title suggests.
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