Deep Sea Arcade - Outlands

There’s no bones about it; ‘Outlands’ is a collection of lovely, autumnal, psych-tinged guitar pop from Deep Sea Arcade, yet another Australian proponent of the psych-revival that music has been experiencing of late. However in place of the sludgy drone of something like Tame Impala’s debut album ‘InnerSpeaker’, ‘Outlands’ embraces a cleaner jangle that’s lighter, more upbeat and more obviously radio-friendly. The overall impression of the album is less “acid freak-out” and more akin to watching the world through rainbow-coloured sunglasses, slightly inebriated.

The album’s opening title track is pretty indicative of the sound of the album and hence an apt choice as it’s title. The atmosphere is downcast and melancholic with glimmers of sunshine and spark on the standout tracks like the baggy swagger of ‘Seen No Right’ and the creeping ‘The Devil Won’t Take You’. ‘Together’ is another beautiful track with its cascading surf guitars and its steady, heartbeat drumbeat (the same one used in every song since Phil Spector’s ‘Be My Baby’ – and damn, it still works). ‘Outlands’ is also well recorded and performed and the band’s cohesion receives the honorable mention for the album’s successes. Like a lubricated machine, each band member’s contribution seemingly bleeds into one another with just the right amount of everything in all the right places and no one overpowering one another. It’s quite impressive for a psychedelic-tinged record because psychedelia itself is usually associated with having a loose, spacey feel with little restraint.

In fact, you could probably say that ‘Outlands’ is a pretty tasteful album in almost every way and maybe even calculatingly so. Over the course of twelve tracks, the album seems to signpost some fairly significant influences in indie rock from the past 50 years. For example, we see shades of The Strokes and Phoenix on ‘Granite City’. Elsewhere we see the Kinks on ‘Don’t Be Sorry’ and even Interpol on ‘All The Kids’. All the while giving these motifs a light psychedelic facelift, of course. This is not necessarily a bad thing because a) no one can really claim to be totally and utterly original and b) the songs, even the ones mentioned, are still incredibly enjoyable to listen to. But, the problem for Deep Sea Arcade is that the aforementioned bands at least occupied a time in music where their music brought something different when they first came to prominence and it results in the Deep Sea Arcade not setting themselves apart in a music scene that is becoming one huge global and time-shifting melting pot.

Overall the album doesn’t have the imperfect grit of a truly memorable classic. But that’s OK because it’s the groups debut and even then, it is a solid and enjoyable album completely in and of itself. Here’s hoping that the fingerprint of the group’s future releases is more pronounced on future output because they have shown that they have all the tools to come up with something really special.