This is an eerily spaced-out body of acoustic-based music, by turns languid, lyrical, rootsy, and bracing, often in unexpected places. The actual singing is resplendent in Everly Brothers-style harmonies, all transposed to a post-psychedelic setting that Don and Phil never embraced. Nick Thorburn and Jim Guthrie mix their voices in eerily lyrical fashion backed by low-wattage (or no-wattage) instrumentation, doing songs which seem to speak to variant states-of-mind and consciousness -- think of the Everlys treading into the spacier Graham Nash/David Crosby territory circa 1970, but with a peculiar pop edge. The album opener The Sound recalls the tone of the Traveling Wilburys' Handle with Care in its good-natured, gentle introductory vibe. They claim a strong debt to R&B and doo wop but that's a little hard to hear for the first third of the CD -- what is plainer throughout is that someone has finally delivered a follow-up to the Beach Boys' Friends album, dwelling on moments and sensibilities that slip past most of us in the normal course of a day. And in the course of plunging into those moments, Guthrie and Thorburn become funny as often as they are profound -- What World could almost pass for a slice-of-life vignette song by Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe Buffay on #Friends. Sleep Talking finally gets us to a doo wop-laced sound that's totally beguiling in this acoustic setting -- it leads us into the relatively high-wattage title track, a rootsy rocker with a beat, a high haunt-count and a great break. And then, for the second half, it's back to what CSNY used to call "wooden music," on My Beach, Ode to Abner, Pretty Hair, etc. The folkiest piece here is Duties of a Lighthouse Keeper, the music of which sounds like something that should have been written by the late Stan Rogers. It all ends with I Wish I Knew, on a serious note about communication and perceptions, which sums up the entire record. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

1		The Sound
2		All Day
3		Get Lost
4		What World
5		Sleep Talking
6		Moody Motorcycle
7		My Beach
8		Ode to Abner
9		Pretty Hair
10		Vision Failing
11		Duties of a Lighthouse Keeper
12		I Wish I Knew

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