(2020) I See Rivers - Deep & Rolling Green


Review:
Making their way from three corners of Norway, via the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, before settling in Pembrokeshire for the recording of this debut album, I See Rivers have taken a steady, surefooted journey in the build up to the release Deep & Rolling Green. Starting out with a sound labelled as ‘float-folk’ on their first EP Standing Barefoot in 2017, the trio, comprising of Eline, Gøril and Lill, have explored a variety of styles along the way, flirting with pop on 2018’s EP Play It Cool, although as this album attests to, their folk-roots have never been too far away. And one consistent feature has been their ability to utilise vocal harmonies in astonishing fashion, their voices together collectively superior than the sum of their already impressive individual parts. “Preparing for and recording this album has been a really long process. Since this is our first full length album some of these songs were written while we were still at university seven years ago,” I See Rivers explained. “All three of us write songs for the band and for the album we decided to write most of the songs individually. We wanted to explore how it would sound if we let our individual style come through in the writing and then make it sound like I See Rivers in the way we produced the songs in the end.” With a track-listing extending to 16 songs, Deep & Rolling Green is a substantial debut offering, even if some of the tracks are short-lived, instrumental numbers. The individual song-writing efforts are noticeable, although themes of love and loss ebb and flow strongly throughout, alongside frequent references to mythology and nature, as on lead single “Helios” and the poignant “Apollo”. There’s coverage of more contemporary topics as well, with “We Don’t Get More Time” serving as a climate change call-to-arms and “Dying Moon” reflecting on what could have been. There are numerous stand-out moments. “Oh God” is a divine, heart-wrenching tale, stripped down, bare and fraught, where subtle silences hang heavy in the air, amidst moments of raw, tormented emotion, evoking flickers of sunlight glinting off dust as it streams through a lofty window into a barren room below. “ITILMTBWIA”, the most recent single, is a similarly sorrowful and reflective tale, with “Grow and Go” providing an utterly charming upbeat contrast and “Out Of Breath” offering up sparkling piano riffs amidst choral harmonies. Ensuring the album finishes with a flourish, the title track Deep & Rolling Green is a stirring anthem, equalling A Fine Frenzy’s conceptual Pines for its pure and earthy beauty. Overall, Deep & Rolling Green meanders its way between folk and pop, taking in the harmonic highs of the trio, fizzing and popping and bursting with energy at times; at others, filled with blissful, reflective moments of solace. On it, the Norwegian trio haven’t just utilised harmonies, but weaponised them. The result is an album that invites you to sit and listen in stillness, as I SEE RIVERS roam their way around you; a delight of sounds and vocal magnificence, punctuated with moments of calm. But above all, always cloaked in the exquisite harmonies that so define their sound.





Tracklist:
01 - Apollo
02 - Collide
03 - Helios
04 - Grow and Go
05 - Elioelioelio
06 - I Look Like My Mother
07 - Oh God
08 - Itilmtbwia
09 - We Don't Get More Time
10 - Lost It All
11 - Dying Moon
12 - Bugs
13 - How
14 - Fortress of the Fish
15 - Out of Breath
16 - Deep and Rolling Green


Media Report:
Genre: indie-folk, pop
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits