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Latenight Weeknight Records
Released: September 19, 2006 |
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A Shoreline Dream
"I think what's key is the story. The meaning. The visualization and fantasy of wanting to break free from the society, which over the years has tried to form us into something that we're not. The album itself is a cry for a day void of corporate leadership, impersonal lifestyles, and ignorance to those we care about. We live in a time with too many options - too many ways of avoiding the consequences.”
A concept album is often times a vehicle of musical expression that infrequently seems to meet its goals. By making a record that is supposed to send a message through story and coherence, there’s the consideration of everything surrounding it. Similar to scoring films, concept albums do not provide the kind of visual aid that comes with cinematic expression. Album art is often the one visual crutch to lean on, but as worthwhile as it feels to have a record’s finished product in your hands, the popularity of download in its non-material, digital format is overwhelming.
With their debut LP, Denver-based A Shoreline Dream present a truly unique concept album titled Avoiding The Consequences, which hold appreciation and awareness as two of its stronger intentions. Dark, poetic, and ambient, tracks like “Saturday Morning” and “Love Is A Ghost In America” nail the notion that the band has already realized their sound with their very first record together. The melodic rhythm of “Focus The Present” is reminiscent of some of the best shoegaze with a black metal undertone. “Our lives have become broken by our disarray,” sings Ryan Policky, who also handles guitar, keys, and all sampling for the album. Much like VAST and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s first record or Bjork’s Vespertine, “Motherly Advice” is a paramount example of using vocals as a major part of the instrumentation.
The quartet has been making music for at least ten years, as well as using other professional artistic outlets as forms of expression (i.e. photography, graphic design, painting, filmmaking, producing, DJing, etc.) Drummer Gabriel Ratliff also spends his time doing one of at least eight major outdoor sports, and feels that everything we choose to do in life, in some form or another provides influence in his music. Appreciation of them, he says, gives so much more meaning to the art.
A Shoreline Dream’s record has a message that is realized by the quality of its production, which was done at the recording studio that has devoured most of Policky’s home (Shoreline Studios). “Production is the most important part of any band’s sound,” he says, “and those who push the limits and refuse to do what’s technically correct always get me off.” Layered, harmonic, and still dark in its own right, the band wanted to capture something unique with the idea of escaping the delusions imposed by modern industrial society, and embracing our real personas, goals, and need for sincere interaction with others on emotional and intellectual levels. The names of the band, album, website, and song titles are no coincidence, and though the artwork strongly supports the quartet’s ideas, the songs are the strongest relay of their ideas and intentions.
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