The Geordie stereotype may not be one of delicacy, vulnerability or class and yet that’s the picture painted in ‘Too Late For Logic’, the stunning debut long player from Newcastle’s Sharks Took The Rest.
Operating under the radar without hype or fuss, the six-piece have never been touted as the next big thing on the airwaves or glossy pages of the next big music magazine and yet the delivery here is intense, fragile, beautiful; making for a record which should feature highly in many end of year lists. While the average folk band stomps and plucks banjo like a rolling freight train, Sharks Took The Rest take a different path, fronting with strings, piano and vocals. It’s more of an aimless wander by a river than a galloping ride through the faux-midwest of Shoreditch.
Beccy Owen’s vocals are dreamy. Not in the clichéd sense but in a manner that will take you journeying through the stories and melodies of someone else’s mind for a little while. It’s escapism in it’s truest form and while Owen’s lyrics in ‘Restaurant’ talk of finding that place where no one knows your name you find yourself joining her in the most honestly told of tales. We listeners are all strangers and yet friends brought together for an all too fleeting forty five minutes.
‘Gulliver’ is as close as this record comes to the folky road trod by Laura Marling and a succession of female followers while other tracks offer up subtle nods to chamber music, electronica, and general melodic and occasionally orchestral wonder.
Cleverly written and deftly played; in a sea of guitar wielding troubadours these sharks never stop swimming.