Review Summary: comfort
If there ever were an album to calmly battle the oddly negative connotations surrounding the word ‘comfort’, it would be
A Ritual Sea. The debut full length by Dublin gazers A Ritual Sea is top tier dreamy comfort listening: it’s pleasant, intimate, and entirely coherent. Finding itself at the intersection of shoegaze and dream pop, the band expertly draws from the catchiness of indie pop and the lush atmospheres of ethereal wave - one of the most criminally overlooked genres of the early 2000’s. The result is a crystal clear cocktail, entirely intoxicating in its inviting familiarity.
True to its familiarity,
A Ritual Sea’s beauty can be distilled to the expected individual elements: ‘Serpentine’s bouncily distorted melodies; ‘Violet’s heavenly twinkles; Donna McCabe’s lightly angelic vocals all throughout the album. Yet, it’s A Ritual Sea’s ability to combine and intertwine all these inherently gorgeous aspects that makes the full package shine. ‘Radiate’ complements its shimmering guitars with simplistically effective drums, trading the gothic-tinged verses for a huge, entrancing chorus. Closing cut ‘Silver Morning’ can only be described as a shoegaze hymn, leaving enough space in between its croons and whispers to fill any cathedral within reach. It’s a unique moment where the band go
all the way: occasionally, it feels like songs could have opted for more intensity and expanded upon themselves. Yet, this should mostly be taken as a suggestion for future projects: simply put,
A Ritual Sea is a wonderfully comfortable debut album that presents a world of opportunities for the Dreamy Dubliners.
