Sins, The - Mourning the Night (Album)
When I put in The SinsMourning the Night LP, I was secretly hoping it was crap. Then, as a cynical and semi anonymous internet critic, I could heap all manner of scathing and acerbic remarks upon it. Imagine then, faithful readers, my disappointment when I discover that ‘The Sins’ are not that crap. ‘The Sins’ mostly succeed in pulling off their eclectic mix of jazz, blues and ‘lounge’ music, and “Mourning the Night” winds up as a solid and confident album that is brimming with original sounds.
The song writing credit is shared evenly by Steve Griffiths and blonde bombshell Kari Pihl (insert wolf whistle), who also share vocal duties throughout the album. It is when these two sing together and utilise the male/female combination that their music sounds its best and most interesting and it is used with particular effectiveness in some of their soaring choruses, especially when breaking up the tension of their sultry verses, like the track ‘Shadow You’. It is this tension and spikiness, cemented by the minor sounding guitar, keys and vocals that will either enamour people to “Mourning the Night” or make it a bit more difficult to swallow. But I would suggest that without this ‘edginess’ it would be a whole lot duller.
If I was a betting man, (note, I am actually a hardcore gambler with a serious betting problem…somebody help me) then I would wager that the three musicians in this band have been playing in some format or another for quite a while. Another wager worth taking up might be that these three don’t shy away from playing live. I suspect seeing ‘The Sins’ live would make one a fan.
The biggest advantage ‘The Sins’ have is their song writing. Both Kari and Steve show they have a confident, mature approach, sonically and lyrically. One criticism is that, while some of their songs may sound great live…in fact I’m sure they do, they don’t really translate on the album. Actually, this is mainly in reference to track 5, the bluesy ‘Ending Pain’. The rest are fine.
The last two tracks are so good I cried with happiness (note, that while I said I cried, it was really more of a small head nod and me mouthing ‘that’s good’ to myself). As well as ‘Can’t Stand Still’ and ‘Shadow You’, other album standouts are ‘Bar Conversation’, ‘Ice Princess’ and ‘Under the Sun’. These tracks transport the listener to a small intimate bar at 2 AM where people are standing around nodding and mouthing ‘that’s good’ to each other.
The production, however, is a little bit mystifying. Some songs suffer from a cold, empty remote production sound where a warm live sound would have done the business. Was it made cold and detached on purpose? I bet it wasn’t. ‘The Sins’ find themselves in that awkward position, not writing trendy music for the emo kids and not quite easy listening enough to be embraced by the public as a whole. Which begs the question…who listens to them? Mostly no-one, I presume, which is unfortunate. I’m willing to put some money on ‘The Sins’ being aware of this already and not really caring. And that’s a good thing. Bless them and I hope they keep writing and putting out music because it is good.
Even if ‘good’ doesn’t pay the bills it is still…..um, good.
