To Sur with Love is as appropriate a title as any you're likely to find this year. Bridging the narrowest gap between Geoff Farina and Jack Johnson, The Graves' Greg Olin writes simple, jazz-tinged folk songs that invite the listener to imagine bon-fires and big waves. This is meant to be chill music for the clever Californian child. At its best, To Sur With Love is quite charming: "China" conjures M. Ward, and the dissonant harmonies of "Touchdown" recall the more mellow aspects of The Microphones.
Ultimately, it is this steadfast dedication to taking it easy that does the album in. The laid-back, surfer-folk sound of the album gets old pretty quickly despite the instrumentation, which features all kinds of organs, horns, and the like. The lyrics have a half-finished quality to them; witty lines like "I once caught a glimpse of something sacred/ But I think it got a better glimpse of me ("China")," are interspersed with duds such as "Never say the same thing twice/ Never say the same thing twice/ ‘Cuz it never sounds that nice ("Not Any More at Night")".
As a songwriter, Olin shows some promise on To Sur. However, as every aspiring writer/painter/janitor knows, promise is only a small portion of what one needs to succeed. One also occasionally needs to have a fire lit under his ass. Anyone got a light?
1. Honey Pot
2. Touch The Sun
3. Touchdown
4. Sing A Song
5. Deepspace Team
6. Not Any More At Night
7. Putting On A Dumb Spell
8. Bleed
9. Rover In A Household
10. China
11. Headphone Parde
12. Give Me Your Spit
13. York Roberts
More about: Graves
