Music Review: The Little Ones - Morning Tide - Page 2

What of Morning Tide though? Well, in Britain at least sanity has prevailed, with the band's long time benefactors at the Heavenly label (Also home to Cherry Ghost, Doves and The Magic Numbers) coming to the rescue. Any concerns that Sing Song may have been a fortuitous one off are immediately satisfied by the titular opening track, it's reedy psychedelic opening giving away almost immediately giving away an uplifting, insistent jangle interspersed with la-la-la-ing aplenty and a piquant air of Socal's more benign climate.

In truth, there's little diversion from the 'ain't broke formula they're obviously so committed to; carefully embroidered harmonies, guitars ringing incessantly like bells and words seemingly hatched from the mind of child. By many other band's standards “Ordinary Song” and “Gregory's Chant” would be held up to the light like a magnum opus; here they're almost randomly sequenced, gems carelessly dropped by an old woman who no longer has a need for them. Morning Tide's Everest amongst the K2's will however really give the trailing field few headaches; “Tangerine Visions” is the type of song which makes songwriters contract hitmen in a jealous thrall, three minutes dead of warm and languid urgency, exiting as quickly as it arrives and leaving a sublime aftertaste which belies it's apparent simplicity. There's even some melancholy to finish, with “Farm Song” spiralling away like a long discarded Monkees out take from their "We're actually musicians" period.

In a world of labels and boxes, on the surface it's at least easy to tag The Little Ones. It's The Beach Boys, right? Well yes and no. Tempting though it is to describe their music as surf influenced sixties pop, this is the kind of over simplification that one might use to categorise Imagine as a piano based ballad. Cynics may point to Morning Tide's lack of real world awareness, repeating their call that now more than ever it's vital for our artists to agitate, educate, organise, but this is no more The Little Ones destiny than it is their responsibility. They understand that in these grim times, pop music remains one of our few places of escape.

Article Author: Andy Peterson

British. Thirtysomething. Passionate. Opinionated to a fault. Never less than everything. If you're at the edge of reason, you're taking up too much room.

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