Released March 5th on Propeller Recordings
Reviewed by Francesca Baker
It’s been a long time coming. Almost a year after their EP and a fair few months since we spent an afternoon together on Brighton Beach shivering under misleading May sunshine discussing cycling down steps the excitable sextet Team Me have released their full length album To The Treetops!, an album which bursts with as much vigour and flushed cheek conviction as the name suggests.
Like a summer journal come alive, this is an album that crackles with curiousity, richy laced with frolicking flutters and undulating melodies. Sometimes mesmerising and blissed out, as on Favourite Ghost, sometimes exploding with unpredictable energy like Weathervanes & Chemicals, the whole album sounds organic and elemental, as though created in unplanned flashes of inspiration. Final track Daggers unexpectedly reminds of Radiohead’s Just, albeit more smiley. The number of notes is almost equalled by the number of instruments that Marius D Hagen (vocals, guitar), Synne Knudsen (vocals), and their four multi talented pals chuck into the merry mix creating a sound of delightful disorder.
The gaping drowsy Patrick Wolf & Daniel Johns is a fluid and dreamy tune, and the epically titled latest single With my hands covering both of my eyes I’m too scared to have a look at you now a kind of poetry of raindrops, myriad hues and twinkling toes. Like a balloon flying to freedom against the background of windmills turning, there’s a general aura of erumpent joy underpinned with a calm contentedness.
Although potentially the sound of being blinded by the good things in life, this is also the sound of experiencing it with arms welcome, grandiose glee. Glorious.