A band’s name can sometimes be misleading. The phrase “When Tides Collide” certainly connotes confrontation, a clash, the disruption of normality. But the key, as I see it, is the word ‘when’. ‘When’ signifies a present moment, a particular event that conceptually references all events of such nature at the same time in an abstraction. Abstraction is not the description of an action: there’s no beginning, there’s no end. The end as purpose is, in a very broad use of the word, impressionistic. And impressionism is, after all, ambient music’s form of expression. Expression, the content, directed towards building a mood, the realization of being where we are just listening, warmly frozen by that ‘when’ which indicates this very instant that escapes us. Escapes us but leaves a trail of sensations behind, a road for us to float upon and see, for a second, truer time, the circumstances that surround us.
If I’m not going over the top, and only if, then the album's title constitutes an action in which the listeners are dynamic participants: We Lifted Up... (Into the Night). If music is an inclusive discipline, then I guess we’re talking about a ‘we’ that covers both band and listeners. And if we lifted up, then we must’ve been down, rooted to the ground beneath. But let’s just hide the ‘ifs’ and connotations. The action, in past tense, has already taken place, and we know neither its consequences nor its purpose; instead, we just know where, a where that’s framed by the parenthesis but made infinite by the ellipsis, keeping us from ever completing the phrase, keeping us in a kind of inspired suspense provoked by this indefinite action of lifting up... (into the night).
“Yeah, sure, whatever, but where’s the music, man?” you must be asking by now. Right there, I say, right there in the interplay of written language. After all, the tracks have names such as “The Ol’ Battle Hymn” and “These New Shores,” descriptive keys to which the music (somewhat) emotively plays out. A soothing sense of intensity-free nostalgia results from the minimal, reverberated banjo lines and quieted-down electronic background of the first example; a tranquil march-like tone of hopeful adventure lets us perceive these shores the band are showing us in the second one.
A sudden twist takes us into the realm of the non-descriptive, inked and colored by the recognizable sounds of post-rock with added spiritually-driven vocals. But even if “We’re All Dying…”, there’s no drama to cry and lash out against, only the calmness of knowing the inevitable instead. Then again, “Lifting, We Hesitated…” In hesitation lies a rupture, a sudden, instinctive change: we were active part of these impressionistic landscapes, at peace for more than half an hour, when out of nowhere came our consciousness and once again separated us from that which we were experiencing. We cannot complete the phrase, we cannot know why or at what point we hesitated. We are left in suspense; we are left in the unsettling, insecure realm of living this moment, a moment that lasts for minutes on end only to finally vanish, just the same as if it had lasted mere seconds.
There is a problem, though: the impressionistic is not limited to the conceptual approach, and permeates the execution in a way that could be detrimental for some listeners. Just like the real impressionism, We Lifted Up seems to lack expression in its playing, making the performance sound, at times, plain and uninspired, driven only by inertia and a vague sensation of just following the mood, a questionable act of voluntarily losing will after telling us that no one but autonomous us did all that lifting to the skies. The vocals also sometimes suffer; there are many parts in which they fall into a background role, playing, almost tagging along with their blurred words. This weakness dangerously dissolves the line between significant and completely ignorable, making the lyrics quite uninteresting… if you can even hear them clearly in the first place.
In conclusion, this album evidently has a lot of thought behind its base, revealing plenty of possibilities for interpreting and experiencing the music. Its strength, the creation of meaningful instants or moments in an impressionistic fashion, is also the source for its particular failures. Such a situation turned this otherwise great record into an “eh, I’ve heard better” kind of listen, even if I certainly appreciate and admire the cohesive effort of the band. Unlike with others, I don’t see in When Tides Collide’s work an encouraging trace of future progress, of moving on to greater things. I can see only the moment, this album, and I think I have none other but them to blame. Who knows? Maybe they can prove me wrong in the near future. Hopefully just not this instantly near.
-David Murrieta