Sea Wolf, Port O’Brien – Live @ Radio Radio

Concert Reviews • Monday October 12th, 2009 • 10:29 am

Then the deluge. A rain-soaked night in the city known as the Crossroads of America made way for the cello-drenched, rustic-pop melodies of Sea Wolf. Quirky folk-rockers Port O’Brien opened the show, another stop on what could be called the Coastal Band Names Tour.

Held at one of Indianapolis’s best-kept secrets, Radio Radio in the historic, arty-trendy Fountain Square district downtown, the concert got off to the venue’s typical endearingly tardy start. Alex Brown Church, the brain and heart behind Sea Wolf, trotted out a full-band lineup and a reliance on songs from brand-new album White Water, White Bloom, anchored throughout by Joyce Lee’s cello.

White Water’s ten songs are on the whole much more frenetic than the rest of Sea Wolf’s oeuvre to date. It showed early on in the Springsteen-esque, Rising-era “The Traitor” (one of the record’s few non-earthy titles) and in “Dew in the Grass,” which tumbles along on the strength of drums and cello both. Oregon native Nathan Anderson’s guitar featured prominently, his plugged-in lines providing the wave on which Church repeatedly rode the euphoric chorus, “The dew in the grass had an electric glow.”

The melancholic thread running through “Winter Windows” was an apt, timely precursor to what’s to come late this year – we see all the seasons here in Naptown – and the driving sadness in its strumming remains what Church and his crew do best. “It weighs too much this time, my hands are broken/ She’ll disappear again, before we’ve spoken,” Church intoned later on the downtrodden “Black Leaf Falls.” Here’s a guy whose only recreational drug may be relational dismay. Carry on, we say – you make pretty songs out of it.

“I’m never gonna sing a sad song again,” Church moaned/lied at one point. The singer’s distinctly morose moan/mumble eases pleasingly through his songs in ways you only wish the man could through this life, by the sound of it. If indeed he carries baggage, he certainly carries no pretensions. It’s safe to say after interviewing him and witnessing a couple Sea Wolf shows (he previously toured in support of Nada Surf) that Alex Brown Church will have nothing to do with the postmodern frills of some indie-rock siblings. It’s remarkable to see in a songman hailing from LA.

“O Maria!” appeared as the bouncy, lovelorn epitaph to another relationship that’s bit the dirt, the most upbeat song Sea Wolf has birthed. White Water opener “Wicked Blood” continued his penchant for writing Halloween-ready fare, and revealed once again Church’s consuming drive for fashioning fairly intricate, layered folk-pop.

In encore came a solo acoustic take on “Orion & Dog,” and when Church utters the line, “This body is mine, and you may do with it whatever you like,” it’s not so much in defeated resignation as in a doting realism. The song, one of just a couple down-tempo tracks on the new album, tells a stark tale of constellation love. If Church named his band after a character in a Jack London novel, he may yet have a novel in himself, or at least a narrative concept album.

Closing it out was the expected “You’re A Wolf,” Sea Wolf’s biggest song to date. The full-band backing returned with Anderson’s lead guitar screaming to the song’s finish, a welcomed changeup for a song these people must be beyond sick of playing by this point.

First up on this bill was LA’s Sara Lov, a precocious, diminutive lass with a lovely, breezy voice and a winsome vibe. She sang her trademark song “Fountain” (now featured on a couple soundtracks, as everything seems to be these days) before closing with a surprising cover choice, Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is A Cage.” Tapping that was brave, if lacking the gothic power or the passion of the original.

San Fran folksters in Port O’Brien came next with shout-sing anthems sometimes reminiscent of Akron/Family as fronted by Daniel Smith (Danielson). My companion noted rightly that one song actually sounded a lot like Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” on the verses. The makeup of the band appears odd on-stage: three scuzzy-looking dudes and a fetching, if seemingly nonplussed, brunette. That girl is Cambria Goodwin, prettier half of the songwriting/life couple at the core of Port O’Brien with Van Pierszalowski. Their moniker’s shared with an Alaskan bay, and so sidling up to Sea Wolf made good sense, no doubt.

The band’s latest disc, Threadbare, dropped on October 6, and they mined it to good effect. In a set eight songs strong, the band set the perfect stage for Sea Wolf’s themes with the line, “I’m doing fine in the city, and I don’t miss the stars.”

Tagged as: Indianapolis, Indie Rock