“Another State” is the latest released by Seafarers, an exceptional English group based in London. It’s their third full-length album, arriving after “II” and “Orlando,” two excellent works released in 2022 and 2020 that you should immediately check out. Lyrically, “Another State” explores themes such as relationships, friendships, feelings, moods, circumstances, situations, and characters. These songs arrive like separate stories exploring people who live ordinary lives, leaving their hometown, and relocating to another city, while tackling moral dilemmas at the same time. Seafarers explore human nature in a very profound, illustrious, poetic, but also philosophical manner at some points, providing an emotional depth and complexity to their compositions. Soundwise, Seafarers combines many different but complementary music genres to illustrate such rich and luxurious sonic imagery. Perhaps indie pop comes to mind first, but you’ll notice how they implemented some of the finest properties borrowed from contemporary pop, dream pop, alt-pop, alt-folk, indie folk, indie rock, and synth rock. They use all these additional elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift their songs to new heights while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. Therefore, these experimentations with many different but complementary styles resulted in a comprehensive collection of catchy, engaging, memorable compositions suitable for even the pickiest music enthusiasts and beyond.
As soon as you press play, you’ll notice that Seafarers thoroughly planned everything while writing, composing, arranging, and performing. Each composition arrives with a perfect structure, garnered with many intricate segments, brilliant ideas, and marvelous orchestrations. Every track carries a calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal ambiance, achieved by cleverly stacking delicate layers of instrumentation. Seafarers carefully implemented each vocal, sonic, and rhymic maneuver, thinking not only about separate songs but about the entire collection as a whole. It’s nearly mindblowing how all these songs are unique, but they all go together as a fascinating indie pop amalgam. Anyone even remotely into writing and composing music knows that’s a difficult task to achieve, but Seafarers assembled this album with such care for every single detail, leaving no room for any mistakes. With the initial notes and beats, it becomes apparent the listeners are dealing with highly experienced musicians who know how to assemble catchy, engaging, memorable, and complex pop songs that tackle all the senses and the human soul. You’ll notice how passionate, sincere, confident, powerful vocal performance offers an emotional depth and complexity to these songs. The impressive vocal range seamlessly balances low, mid, and high notes, emphasizing everything Seafarers aimed to achieve with this material. These vocal harmonies command attention and guide the listening apparatus from scratch to finish while decorating each segment and instrumentation with ultimate precision.
In the meantime, the Seafarers also took care of marvelous interplays between synths and guitars, instrumentations that serve as a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. There’s an entire collection of various leads, themes, melodies, harmonies, ambiances, and other virtuosities delivered by polished or slightly distorted synths and keys. These orchestrations spice things up during the songs and elevate the entire material on an entirely new level, making “Another State” such a pleasant listening experience worth revisiting over and over again. You’ll also notice how calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal, arpeggiated, and regular chord progressions lurk around during calmer moments while the slightly heavier, powerful, robust bare chords and riffs pervade from all possible sides during louder segments. These dynamics work to the advantage of these songs, making them more interesting, complex, and entertaining for the listening apparatus. Seafarers cleverly assembled all these orchestrations, thinking about even the tiniest details. “Another State” wouldn’t sound this good without equally complex, vividly hearable, warm-sounding low-ends, very important instrumentations that lurk beneath all those synth and guitar layers, providing more than necessary heaviness, clarity, and depth while binding everything together with rhythmic patterns. The rhythmic sequences are based upon tastefully assembled, well-accentuated, flawlessly performed beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics keeping everything in line while dictating groove and tempo. The attention to detail is nearly mindblowing, and you’ll notice all those cleverly implemented nuances if you pay close attention while listening to these tracks. Seafarers thought about everything, and if the synths and guitars serve as an adequate backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon then the rhythm section acts as a backbone, holding all these instrumentations together.
“Bedwetters,” “Another State,” “Televangelists,” “Everything I’d Do (To Get A Hold On You),” “Crashing Cars,” and “Anyone Else” are unquestionable standouts of the material, but you should pay equal attention to the entire album, because “Another State” carries so many beautiful moments, so this material will instantly become one of your favorite indie pop records this year. Seafarers created another masterpiece with this album, proving there are still bands who know how to surprise their listeners with marvelously written and composed songs. You should put “Another State” on your music radar as soon as possible. Don’t miss this indie pop gem!
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