For Ryan McPhun, band leader for and creative force behind The Ruby Suns, his second album is a mixed achievement. I’m quite sure that it realises exactly what he was hoping for, but in doing so it fails to assert itself as an independently worthwhile album.
Sea Lion is spacey, jangly, cute, playful, worldly, endearing and textured. It’s also, much to its detriment, very good background music. The album, for all of its sweetness, never quite emerges from the gargantuan shadow cast by its obvious influences: the likes of Brian Wilson and his boys from California, and The Shins among others.
At times meandering and pleasant, and at others obtuse and disposable, Sea Lion would have made a pretty good EP. Tane Mahuta, sung entirely in Maori and readily infectious, is good clean fun and would fit right at home on the soundtrack to a Wes Anderson film. Kenya Dig It? is at first grating, but is a real slow burner. Its sonic depth and surprising moments of power make up for the often obscure melody.
Beyond the two aforementioned songs, and perhaps Remember, for the way it reminds one of George Harrison’s musical genius, the rest of the album is pointless and flat. McPhun has, in attempting to create sweeping forests of nuance, written some incredibly boring music that, for its twists of instrumental quirk, grows increasingly tiresome. The best remedy for the annoyance induced by this album, in this reviewer’s opinion, is the swift and thorough application of Chutes Too Narrow.
