WITH SAILS AHEAD-INFINITE VOID

After years of labor as vocalist Sierra Binondo recounted to me in our recent interview, the Springsteen Country-domiciled progressive post-hardcore outfit With Sails Ahead have finally set the LP Infinite Void out to sea. One of the first things that stood out to me about this band is that they can seriously write hooks. What’s more, while there’s a clear instrumental proficiency, this never overwhelms the songs themselves. The songwriting and songcraft is clearly prioritized over showiness, and it shows. "Honey," for example, follows the playbook of most pop songwriting where the vocals drive the melody of the chorus, which pays major replayability dividends; the appearance of pulses. later in the track signals a climactic burst of aggression that has as an interesting darkness-and-light kind of interplay and is a surprising but effective resolution to the song. Another surprising and intriguing moment occurs on "Lemongrab," where the band fairly abruptly fades out and from what sounds like another room a lone acoustic guitar accompanies Binondo’s ethereal vocals to haunting but beautiful effect. I don’t want to spoil all of the surprises here, though.

Some of the most distinctive moments of the record occur where the band seems to reimagine the more accessible in their own sonic context, such as "Peach Tea (Obituary)," which almost felt like prog Paramore at times. Much of the delight in this record is exemplified by a song like "Picture Perfect Pixels" where this accessibility occurs alongside their clear musical talent and around the band’s willingness to explore unconventional detours. That is, after all, the nature of something that is actually progressive, is it not? A listening note here before I highlight some of my other favorite tracks: though I am talking about these songs out of sequence, Infinite Void is a cohesive whole, and the band recommends listening in one sitting, if you can! Other songs I wanted to note include the gorgeous, bittersweet album opener "every day the sky falls" and the harder-edged penultimate track "Catastrophe," with its incorporations of punk, screamo, and metalcore.

Though just one listen exhibits the care and craft that went into making this record, the listener is rewarded on repeat spins as its intricacies continue to reveal themselves. Songs like "Honey," though, demand repeat in their own right through sheer catchiness, and therein lies the listening pleasure of Infinite Void: in subtlety and in boldness, in accessibility and in experimentation, this is an album that has both ambition and tasteful restraint, and never bores. I don’t give album scores or anything like that on this site, but if I did, Infinite Void would get a high one.