Pellumair: Summer Storm

admin on Nov 29th 2005

A smooth, undemanding listen, “Summer Storm” is just two voices and two guitars on a percussionless merry-go-round. When it works, as on the opener, “Side For This” and the comfortably subdued “Silk As Her Era,” an electric guitar feels like a notable addition, complimenting the structure of the song in all the right ways.

More often than not, however, Pellumair just don’t give their songs a fighting chance, an arrangement of just two guitars (and the occasional pluck of an upright bass) proving insufficient to keep things from growing somewhat monotonous time after time.

Though in some places the pair sound like a British take on Kings Of Convenience (with a hint of Galaxie 500), ultimately the lack of depth to these songs lets things down enough to make 11 tracks and 38 minutes feel like an ambitious stretch.

Having broken up before this album was even released (an inability to find a workable live sound is reported to have been the main reason), one can only hope that their divided talents will find the company of musicians and effective permutations of instruments in their future incarnations.