Gem Club's Breakers Really Is A Jewel

I've already posted a blurb about Gem Club on my "other" blog, Reductive Reviews . But that one's just where I post quick hits (and that one didn't have the video for "Twins") - I save the commentary for here on Ear To The Sound, so it's time I tackled Breakers and posted a new entry here.

I can't get over how heart-breakingly beautiful Breakers is. On the surface, it seems so simple - haunting voices + strings + piano interweave on each of the album's nine songs. There is minimal (and subtle) percussion that serves to embellish without overwhelming (the bells on the title track, the plodding bass drum on "Lands") the piano and voice at the center of every song. The pace the group establish on opener "Twins" [below] isn't quite plodding, but deliberate and the rest of Breakers never attempts to run. Yet even with the heaviness of the pace, the music feels weightless; floating with only the strings and piano to tether it to earth.

Not an album you'll want to put on to have a good time, but oddly enjoyable in its sadness and heartbreak.

Gem Club - Twins from Gem Club on Vimeo.

You can download the song for free after you've watched the video.

Check them out on Hardly Art and their own site, and maybe even "Like" them on Facebook.