Review Summary: Beautifully adrift
Down founding member and singer Rosie Cuckston, Pram initially found themselves coming off of an eleven year hiatus with more questions than answers. Their reunion faced the unenviable task of reshaping the band’s identity while simultaneously reconciling it with the roots they’ve grown over the course of seven LPs and two decades worth of music. For Pram, all of these concerns needed only one particularly bold answer:
onward. Sam Owen (multi-instrumentalist and co-founder) has stepped in sparsely, but admirably, on vocals. There is a noticeable shift towards the instrumental side of their work, where the band has slanted towards a jazzy, exploratory approach that feels almost progressive. Pram has emerged from their extended dormancy sounding rejuvenated and timeless; something that would have been unthinkable a short time ago when they were assumed defunct.
Across the Meridian bends itself effortlessly to Pram’s more experimental whims, resulting in a set of winding, meandering song structures that still merge together seamlessly. Opener ‘Shimmer and Disappear’ feels fantastical and foreign, opening the creative floodgates with grand trumpets, an organ, and even a sitar. It’s a bit of a grand overture, whereas the rest of the album is comparatively restrained. ‘Thistledown’, for example, bleeds in slowly with a sinister-sounding melody, while Owen’s smoky vocals appear for the first time to set an eerie tone that not even a gorgeous mid-song swell of violins can cure. ‘Electra’ feels like the subsequent liftoff from those murky depths, ascending so high into the night that you can almost feel the warmth of the stars’ soft glow.
Across the Meridian plunges listeners into such nebulous states, and it’s an unrelenting, album-spanning embrace.
Pram have never been afraid to get weird, and that aspect of their sound hasn’t changed here. ‘Wave of Translation’, which begins as a placid, brass-driven track, veers rather unexpectedly into lasers and synths that sound almost as if they were transposed from some sort of futuristic arcade. The album is peppered with these kinds of wrinkles, and while they are tacky and plastic-sounding at their worst, they assimilate into most of the tracks harmoniously. Following the methodical progression and expansive atmosphere of ‘Ladder to the Moon’, ‘The Midnight Room’ erupts into sort of a jubilee – this roaring twenties styled trumpet-fest that feels both antiquated and unnerving. It’s not long, then, before Pram does a trust fall into the puffy cushion of ‘Mayfly’ – a soothingly pensive ballad underscored by some graceful, unassuming keyboard notes. As the band jumps between styles with seemingly random discretion, it’s all accomplished in a formless, jazz-inspired fashion; which is to say that it never feels jarring or discordant.
Meridian moves fluidly as a unit, even if it frequently branches off into diverse or peculiar territory.
The album’s apex is reached on the penultimate ‘Where the Sea Stops Moving’ – a still piece that echoes with the quiet, scratchy fuzz of an old record player while Sam Owen delivers a downright haunting vocal performance. Her voice glides over the song’s ghastly aura as well as its distant classical piano notes, creating one of the most disturbingly memorable moments that
Across the Meridian serves up. By the time the album concludes there’s this sensation of awaking in the middle of a dream, and the only solution is to be to re-emerge your ears and your mind. It’s an album that rewards repeated listens because there is so much to be gained from them. Every journey back to
Meridian offers one more dazzling gem, shimmering in the music’s translucent waters just waiting to be discovered. Immerse yourself and become beautifully adrift.
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