ALBUM REVIEW: Los Colognes Stir A Sonic “Wave”
How do you embody a wave? Los Colognes must have ask themselves that when they created their newest album, Wave. When you look out into the ocean and see the froth of saltwater coming towards you, music may not be your first thought. Yet, Los Colognes see a wave as an embodiment of the ocean’s mutual fluidity and precision/ strength.
Los Colognes goal of transcendental pop is certainly achieved in Wave. Either through the shimmering keys of A-OK, the whisked chords of “Flying Apart”, thrashed synths of “Can You Remember?”, and the crisping of voice of Jay Rutherford. Like the ocean, Rutherford has a bluesy clarity to him that makes you see through his voice in “Man Over Bored” and “Forever In Between”. They exude Rutherford capacity to just go through a song in the same way the ocean goes through your skin. As you feel lyrics of sought togetherness and self-realization touch upon your skin like seasalt, his voice become cleansing in how straightforward and present they seem. Moreover, these cool, favored tracks transport you to the middle of the ocean; where you are floating, looking to the sky, and tussling between thoughts and blankness. There are moments, in nature, when you are so connected to it that your life as a social being seems replaced by your life as a spiritual one. It is in this that the instrumentals of Los Colognes heighten your senses, as if the entire band closed their eyes and lasers their hearing to every crash and current of the ocean. Their meticulous ears pay off by transitioning their album from one to hear into one to experience.
Personally, I love the ocean. It is one of the most calming aspects of nature, when, of course, it is not stirring a tsunami, Yet, that ugliness aside, Los Colognes Wave reminds listeners of the beauty of the ocean and, oddly, life. With words that are subtly reflective of the tosses and turns that life can throw at you like an ocean turning stormy, the arrangements of Wave remind you that, even if life/ocean turns tumultuous, at it core, it is a gorgeous thing. For More On Los Colognes And To Buy Wave Click Here.
