“Everybody”

The Sea and Cake

THRILL JOCKEY RECORDS

(Out Of 5)

It’s the little things that make The Sea and Cake’s latest album, “Everybody,” the perfect star-watching-on-a-summer-night album that it is – background music that rarely begins to get boring.

An influence to bands such as Broken Social Scene, The Sea and Cake has spent its 14-year career perfecting an electronic jazz-pop that is barely electronic at all. Especially on “Everybody,” their first release in four years, the band relies on few overdubs and computerized effects to arrive at an organic electronic feel that’s meant less for dancing and more for daydreaming.

“Exact to Me” features a hard and jazzy give-and-take between bass and electric guitars, while “Coconut” sways to a mellow Caribbean feel.

And quick pounding beats punch through a cloud of sweet and soulful harmonies in “Too Strong,” led by drummer John McEntire, also a member of post-rock group Tortoise.

The band members have claimed “Everybody” to be the most straight-up “rock record” they’ve ever recorded.

But only a few aspects of a few tracks show their teeth. For the remainder of the album, the clean-cut and crystallized guitars, together with steadily syncopated drums, lets the music groove like inoffensive and soft exotic rock.

The Sea and Cake instigate the imagination, but they never interfere with it.

Even the sharpest-biting songs lack a snarl, mostly due to lead singer Sam Prekop’s cottoned, sweet voice, which remains rather unvaried between songs. This slightly tepid middle ground of emotion and style allows the tracks to blend together and occasionally lose their identities.

Nevertheless, the album is brimming with subtle sophistication.

You won’t hear any drawn-out solos or showy interludes. But you will hear a band totally in sync and feeding off one another’s energy, laying down consciously constructed melodies and harmonies for the ballast of “Everybody.”

Above that foundation, the music only flirts with your attention while shying away from close listening. Instead, it floats through your thoughts, bringing to mind nothing in particular at all.

And really, what could be better for summer?

– Kiran Puri