SUTCLIFFE - Mom, Where Are The Seahorses?

9 songs
41:45 minutes
***** **
Beste! Unterhaltung

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Only a short year after their self-titled debut, Nuremberg quintet Sutcliffe is already back with a second record. The four guys and one woman haven’t exactly been overly productive as Mom, Where Are The Seahorses? contains only three new tracks. The remaining pieces are remixes by friends and two older songs which now come with added vocals, courtesy of Diana Franz on Tired Of Your Love and Phil Vetter on the opener From Blue To Green which strengthens the parallels to Giant Sand.

The remixes all respect the spirit of the original versions, adding small touches here and there, but ultimately not ripping the songs out of their country flavoured moods. This might not be very adventurous, but is certainly preferable to a more unexpected approach that would make listening a rather heterogeneous experience.

The juxtaposition of unreleased material, remixes and vocal tracks work better than expected, and especially the two tracks featuring guest singers make you wish that they would more often break out of their instrumental corset.

Sutcliffe are not the first band from Nuremberg that has a strong love for Americana, making you wonder if this German town has a spiritual connection to the Wild West. If you like Giant Sand, Calexico and other desert scented artists, then you might as well soon find yourself a fan of this quintet whose use of accordion and organ helps to further define their chosen sound. The longer pieces sometimes come with post rock parts, but that should only deter the more puritan souls. As a regular album, Mom, Where Are The Seahorses? would have been something of a letdown, but considering that this album is sold for the price of an EP, we should consider ourselves lucky to get forty varied minutes of proficient Americana made in Germany!