Floater

Wake

(Elemental)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

This hits me immediately with a hard and heavy Northwest rock-ness. With a twist. There’s definitely some of that late era grunge going on, like arena grunge, or something. But then through it there are other influences coming in to play. Granted, this trio does hail from Portland, and they have been playing and recording for like sixteen years… and this is their eighth album… but still, there’s something decidedly not Northwest coming down through the mix.

This band is huge, and at the same time, it seems, a little obscure. I think I perhaps travel in completely different audio circles, but still… the word on the street is “Floater?”

The other words on the street involve things like “rabid fan base”, so, you might be a little more hep to these cats than I. Regardless, this is, I think, a rock band who is supremely confident in what they are doing and they just keep doing it.

So yeah, there’s that big grunge sound. There’s crazy tribal beats and rhythms flailing about, there’s huge guitar riffs and psychedelic rock pushes into the stratosphere. Like squishing Pearl Jam and Rush into a little box and seeing what comes out. I don’t know if I have the right references to accurately paint my little musical portrait here, but I’ll try. Roots rock extreme, perhaps? The vocals are strong and insistent, reminding me sometimes of Mister Vedder, but without as much affectations, but there’s something else, something like Chris Cornell throwing down with Primus, but without the same dynamic range.

The third song, “Wondering,” breaks a little from the previous tracks, feeling a little more straightforward and catchy, but with the requisite guitar wail solo thrown in. Then we move into the rock and roll breakdown boogie of “Broken Toy” which hits on a classic rock (Aerosmith?) vibe, but then near the ending the whole song shifts and floats off looking for some Pink Floyd space station. The trip continues into the next song, which comes across like some kinda VAST / Tool /Floydian daydream with those soundgardening vocals pushing the lazy intro into some kind of dark shadowed rock opera movement.

There’s a floating pretty song, there’s an evil rock song, and we keep on moving pretty heavy mellow through the rest of the album. Grunge is not dead, it’s transformed.