The album of the same name’s final track, “Polarity,” offers something different from the usual ornate and intricate sonic designs that are often the hallmark of The Tidal Water’s music. This time out, the album’s titular swansong is a thing of understatement and restraint.
Feeling, at least to begin with, almost like a medieval ballad in the way that the strings gently cascade and the voice soars and swoons, it is spacious and light. Slowly, more modern sounds take over, and a haunting guitar runs between the resonant and the refined, and the sonic weight is increased ever so slightly, before it settles back into its atmospheric and graceful ways.
As a final sonic throw of the dice for this album, it turns up with something quite unexpected. After building songs out of complex sonic weaves and the clever layering of numerous sonic textures, The Tidal Water give us something almost folk-infused, balladic, and closer to progressive pop than the more intricate multi-genre weaves that form the album’s core.
The message is’ perhaps, to expect the unexpected, but hasn’t that always been The Tidal Water’s way?
Links
Pre-order Polarity album
