With the image of dancing together in the kitchen, the indie College/Art Rock of Ceramic hits you on “You Give More Than Enough” that opens their new album, The Past Ain’t Far. Ceramic has this way of drenching laid back rock in a beauty that’s a variegated lightness. At other times, like the Housemartins, Ceramic has a way of making dark and depressing thing sound bright and sunny (as on the jazzy lilt of “Who’s Gonna Guide the Night?” and its questions about jealousy).
I was listening to The Past Ain’t Far while traveling recently in the Rocky Mountains. As I stared up at the sunshine-capped, snowy mountains, the echoey twang of “How Can I Return?” became a prayer of sorts: “Standing here with my face in the sun/Hoping that someday love will come take me away.” That twang chamber continues on “Angels in the Desert” which contemplates the spiritual dimension of the war in Iraq and the conflicting promises of Christianity and Islam (“I don’t know what you’ve been told/‘bout angels in the desert/Hovering around convoys/Shipping souls to paradise”). It’s a controversial topic handled with grace and beauty musically.
“Blue Comet” is a quiet stroll to the rhythm of a mule pulling a farm cart even though the song tells the tale of waiting for a train to go by every night. The train rhythm shows up on “How’d You Get So Down?” with a psychedelic blues voice like pAt mAcdonald. The blues returns on the growling “Velvet Coat” and the acoustic blues haunt “Lose the King.”
Music Spectrum review of Ceramic’s previous release, the self-titled 5-song EP.
