Artist: Chris Storrow
Album: The Ocean's Door
Label: Self Released
Release Date: 02/05/2016
In a flurry of instantly catchy and terrifically breezy pop songs, Chris Storrow’s The Ocean Door yields nuggets of bona fide A.M. dial gold.
Traversing Zombies-esque non sequiturs to the muddled remains of sunshine surf rock, Storrow’s latest is highly allegorical for what may be true of a great deal of music today. That is to say, a great musical lust to return to humbled roots of beach-focused songwriting.
Shimmering through nine tracks, Storrow resists the pitfalls that befell baroque pop of the ’60s, without leaving behind the devices that employ such a nostalgic tug. In classic Left Banke fashion, The Ocean’s Door is a collection of songs seemingly providing bookends for one after the other at approximately three minutes a pop.
Despite the condensed nature of the songs, the album finds itself endearingly befuddled in both lyrical nature and instrumentation. Enlisting The New Pornographer’s Kurt Dahle and Evan Cranley of Toronto based Stars – among others – The Ocean’s Door slowly comes together as a collection of nonplussed artists seeking refuge in an adventure of expeditious recording.
“Song of The Self-Reliant” hears Storrow belt out the line, “I’m living on borrowed time,” continuously as the currents of keys and bass wash over his vocals. Storrow is nonetheless omnipresent, aside from seemingly being phased in and out of his musings. This tactic can come off as a bit bloated at times, as Storrow and company achingly grasp at straws for the sentimentality of half a century ago. However, the minor contusion is aided by the record’s inherent catchiness. The Ocean’s Door is bound to bounce around in one’s skull indefinitely.
– Jake Tully
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