Bones – Foam Castles
Shipwrecked Shores – Foam Castles
Foam Castles are purveyors of dreamy pop music. Think about a more damaged-sounding Submarines or a Casiotone for the Painfully Alone who’s no longer painfully alone but instead is just a little bit disoriented. They’ve got two full records available for free download. I haven’t given myself time to fully digest Why We Walk yet, but I’ve had Night Crawling playing fairly constantly for the last month or so.
My first impression had me paying attention to the delicate, gauzy feel of many of the tracks. While there’s a lot more to it than just that, further listens have confirmed the significance of that sensation. “Got to Find the Time” is a great example, with the light touch of the saxophone serving as a perfectly balanced counterpart to a melody that swirls languorously around you. And you could hardly ask for more in this department than the eerie “Blue Toyota” which sounds like it would be most at home over the opening credits of a love story directed by Tim Burton.
Speaking of creepy soundscapes, there’s also “Nightcrawlers” which manages to sound exactly like its subject matter, wriggling through dark soil and compressed space.
Elsewhere, you’ll find some songs that inhabit a slightly brighter world. “Cylinders” is a woozy rainbow, endlessly fascinating but never quite within your reach. And “Bones” is one of the finest pop songs I’ve heard this year, with a big old fashioned chorus and harmonies that just scream for inclusion on every summer mixtape made by an indie-kid this year.
I could go on about pretty much every song on the record. “Girl One” deserves special plaudits for the way they make the line “there’s a girl who loves me but she’s far away” manage to convey as much as you’d expect to get from a short novel.
And I haven’t even mentioned what might be the best track. “Shipwrecked Shores” offers a perfect example of the magic that can be worked with the simplest of ingredients. The piano provides a perfect backdrop for a bit of impressionist musical painting. Generous dabs of a rolling piano wave crest over a sun-speckled beach. The light scatters everywhere as it touches on tiny shards of broken glass worn down over the years. You lean back with your eyes wide open and stare into the bluest sky you’ve ever seen, and when the final line repeats “I’m just hanging around…” over and over, nothing could sound more appropriate.