Sharks and Sailors, Builds Brand New

These folks are an enigma — on the one hand, they can be crushingly heavy, with thundering guitars, surging basslines, and neck-snapping drums, but even at their heaviest, Sharks and Sailors remain tranquil, almost serene, with guitarist/vocalist Mike Rollin and bassist/vocalist Melissa Lonchambon’s mostly-detached vocals drifting over the noisy, jagged musical shoals below. What Sharks and Sailors do is meld sweeping, atmospheric-yet-heavy guitars with intricately shifting math-rock, traversing that heretofore undiscovered middle ground between post-punk bands like Edsel, Arcwelder, or late-period Jawbox and instro-metallists like Pelican or Isis.

And what a middle ground it is. The tracks on Builds Brand New alternately swoon and stomp, guitars roaring and thundering one second and working a delicate prog-rock pattern the next, drums sounding like the hand of God smacking down in time, the whole thing coming off like the turbulent soundtrack to some deep-sea rescue on The Discovery Channel. Honestly, I just can’t escape the marine metaphors while thinking about this album, and I swear it’s not because Sharks and Sailors might’ve gotten their name from a June Of 44 track (you know how much those folks like nautical crap). The music’s like the aural equivalent of a brooding, angry sea, tumbling and crashing onto the rocks of some hazy, cold, probably Pacific-facing coastline.

I should note, by the way, that the June Of 44 thing’s not entirely coincidental — there’s a fair resemblance to that whole Chicago post-rock scene here, with tons of math-y guitar bits that churn and grind like they were drawn out on some arcane, musical CAD plotter. The band tempers all that, thankfully, with a noisy-yet-beautiful aesthetic like the one that got draped sloppily over most of my favorite Sonic Youth tracks; the first half of the album, really, is the methodical-sounding, laid-back, droning, chiming part of the program (see the title track, “Cliffs,” “Terminal Lesson”), with some nicely drifting/shimmery bits wavering in and out of view. There’s something narcotic about it all, especially when Lonchambon takes over the vocal duties. This album really sees her come into her own, vocally — it’s cool to hear after observing the band over the past few years.

Near the halfway mark of Builds Brand New, the gloves come off, and the band once again throws me for a loop. With “Fix Your Radar,” which is hands-down my favorite track, the band flexes effortlessly and transforms the gentler, more contemplative band you thought you were listening to into a crushing juggernaut of post-rock. “Radar” sounds like an outtake from Jawbox (think “Iodine” or “Empire of One,” although “Desert Sea” applies elsewhere on Builds Brand New, too), lodged halfway between J. Robbins & co. and The Jonx. It’s jagged and confrontational, a flat-out at-your-throat anti-anthem.

Now, if “Radar” is where Sharks and Sailors drop the glove, the followup track, “Rickshaw,” is where the band wades into the melee to beat the living crap out of you. They’ve done this before, they’re saying (and they have, on their debut EP), and they’re still capable of fucking your shit up if and when they need to — they just choose not to, preferring to get all Zen Buddhist and detached like the bulk of the tracks to this point. It’s metal, metal, metal, the kind of thing Page Hamilton of Helmet would’ve been proud to claim as his own, even back in the pre-suckage Meantime days. Although I have to admit, it’s got a much more melodic undertone to it, lurking just out of hearing, beyond the devastating reach of the guitars.

And it just gets better. To continue the marine thing from earlier, the seas have become decidedly choppy. “Metes and Bounds” makes me wonder if The Jonx and the S&S folks have been sharing a practice space or something, because the song’s way math-y, lurching and noodling like Rush on a heavy-duty psychedelic bender. Between this track and “Hello Sister,” I came to the weird realization that Sharks and Sailors are actually making me like prog-rock once again. I’m reminded of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Dub Trio, or Between the Buried and Me, in equal measure. I love how the latter track rolls and tumbles on the waves ’til it finally disintegrates into wobbly, distant-sounding electronic noise.

Maybe it’s because the last three times I’ve seen or heard these folks, I’ve been tired to begin with, but I have to say, Builds Brand New lulls me into this weird soporific trance state, where I find my head nodding and my eyes focusing on nothing. So by the time closer tracks “In the Sandbox” and “Condor” come stomping in, I’m gone, lost somewhere out at sea. The music’s murky and thundering at once, and I’m out in, rolling serenely with the waves.