Review: Maritime's Human Hearts

Maritime is always very excited

I've had a history with you, Davey von Bohlen. I like our history, mostly. But I don't love our history. For years, I kept getting hooked back into the Promise Ring by peer pressure. There's nothing wrong with any of those albums - they helped develop a genre plagued by low budgets and crappy recordings grow into healthy (still low budget), better-sounding music. 30 Degrees Everywhere still brings back great memories with my friends in junior high and high school - I was just never a huge fan myself. I liked them enough, but would have never listed them as a favorite. Piebald syndrome. Despite my personal lack of enthusiasm about them, they retained a sort of old-school-legend status. Davey made a vocal cameo on Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American, which was actually one of the high points of that album.

In 2003, the Promise Ring was no more, and Davey began singing and playing in Maritime. They refined PR's upbeat, soft pop rock sound to a degree, and Davey kept singing his clever alliterative lyrics. I'll be honest in admitting that I haven't followed them very closely, and so I couldn't tell you much about their development process that you can't read in their bio..

But I can tell you about Human Hearts. Released earlier this week, Maritime lays down something pretty different from what you'd have heard from them in the past. While the album opens up with sprawling chords and melody, it is scribbled over by a rapid and scratchy rhythm guitar. But the two mix well together to make a decent pop rock song. From the beginning, the album seems to channel more contemporary influences, the first coming to mind is Minus the Bear without all the tapping.

As the album carries on through the tracks, you recognize the old Davey/Promise Ring skip-in-the-step here and there, but they are connected by a slightly more atmospheric tone. All the vocals are run through a spacey delay , which adds a new angle to the band's sound. The downside is that it smacks almost too sharply of Alkaline Trio's 2005 Crimson. While listening to the song "Air Arizona," I was almost totally convinced that Matt Skiba was guest-singing on the track. However, the song is undeniably well-crafted and catchy, and doesn't come off as a rip-off of anything, due to its earnest execution. And plus, it's nice to have my state included in the list of geographical locations referenced in Von Bohlen songs (Everywhere In Denver, B is for Bethlehem, Jersey Shore, E. Texas Ave).

The best part of this album is that it is different, and that the band is evolving. The highlight of this album is the twangy, harmonic anthem, "Apple of My Irony" - gotta love Davey and his puns. With Maritime, it's never been an originality contest, but it doesn't mean they ever get lazy. The lesson I've learned over the course of my incidental relationship with Davey von Bohlen's musical endeavors has been that he'll never produce anything bad, and it's always good to listen to on a road trip.

Letter grade: B-

Human Hearts is available through Cd Universe or Amazon.com