I generally try to write about music in the historical present, with a focus on describing the sound itself. For this reason, this commentary has been quite challenging for me to write. I have such a deeply personal response to "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" that I simply have no way to listen to this album in a subjective manner. Each time I listen, this music fills my head with rich, evocative images of passionate, powerful times in my own life.
"Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" is a masterpiece of rockcraft. The instrumentation sounds sparse (which I suspect is a well-crafted illusion) and this album stays accessible from start to finish. It's never abrasive; the intensity of this music comes from the imagery. This is a great album to put on at a cocktail hour, as it's pretty without being slow, and energetic without being aggressive.
Harvey sounds soulful here. At times barely controlled, she draws throaty, breathy pictures of moments between and within people. The album opener, "Big Exit", tells of moments of fear and disbelief and makes me think of times when I had to make a huge decision in a split second. "Good Fortune" celebrates companionship and makes me think of the early weeks and months of dating the woman who was to become my wife.
My favorite song on this record is "You Said Something", a vulnerable, open song about instants of intimacy in our lives, whisps of romance and friendship that come and go quickly and often leave behind much deeper meaning. We see the power of this band in the interplay between the string instruments and the ghostly harmonies. The imagery here gives me goose bumps every time I listen closely, because they perfectly invoke the ephemeral nature, the fleeting perfection of these moments.
It's the curse of a thoughtful adult to recognize that pivotal moments appear and disappear without warning, and the only way to stay sane is to let them go. This band has made a powerfully beautiful and timeless record by making it about the moments themselves - both the sensory and the emotional parts of our memories. Similarly, by avoiding more concrete topics and love song cliches, this music stays open to new interpretation upon repeated listening. That's the real power of a piece of art like this: a focus on imagery and very understandable - even universal - emotion means that it relates to each listener's life individually, and that relationship changes over time. I expect to love this album and to continue letting it make me feel pleasantly reminiscent for the rest of my life.
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