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SAN CISCO The Water gets 7/10

San Cisco
The Water
Island City/MGM

7/10

Despite San Cisco wrapping up their last tour and going straight back into the studio whilst simultaneously taking a more intense, collaborative approach on new record The Water, it remains distinctly San Cisco: pepped up and fun, offering delicious slices of indie pop laced with the spicy elements of an energetic rock band.

A 10-tracker with most song clocking under four minutes, it’s a fairly straightforward listen – with each track flowing on to the next. The cheeky synths featuring in almost every track form the backbone and feel of The Water, and it makes for a fun time.

Kicking off with Kids Are Cool, vocalist Jordi Davieson invites and entices the listener with highly addictive, funked up rhythms. Scarlett Stevens’ drums are immediately noticeable and maintain a catchy backbeat throughout. Sunrise keeps up the upbeat parade with the latter half giving off the vibes of a hope-fuelled synth anthem.

That Boy bounces along the first half of the record with cheeky staccato guitar notes peppering the verse and a hyperactive drumbeat. Feeling like a plea towards saving a romance, there is a running feel throughout the album where mixed within all the energetic and quirky instrumentation are the emotional subjects of love, loss and hope. If there was an emotional visualisation of this album, it would be the starting, emotional reality of relationships and challenges getting ignored in the hype and ignorance of a drunken three day weekend.

Distance follows the same theme, where again amidst all the indie pop/rock quirks lays emotionally desperate lyrics of two people wanting to connect. However the juxtaposition doesn’t make it unsettling, it offers an audible reassurance of hope and optimism – making the tone of the record a little tumultuous.

Hey, Did I Do You Wrong? allows the album to take a whimsical turn, with its lightly lilting guitar chords and dreamy rhythms. Both Waiting For The Weekend and SloMo  play on the excitement and tension of finding new relationships. The tail end of the album plays on synth mystique. The final three tracks close on an energetic climax, especially Make Me Electrify.

The Water as a record personifies the trivialities and tribulations of relationships – making you fall in and out of love across its half-hour run. From descending into the steep decline of uncertainty, to being brought up to the glorious heights of pleasurable, emotional confusion, The Water takes the listener on an emotional journey, from break-up to hook-up in short spaces of time.

JOSEPH WILSON

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