I don?t know who these people think they are but they?ve put together a mighty enigmatic and intriguing package here.

The disc opens with the lushly-harmonied ?Love,? a pleasant-enough psych-folk exercise that is not at all representative of what awaits. Oh, harmonies, there are harmonies aplenty, sure, like in the lowest-key moments of Yo la Tengo, but this bunch seems never to have heard the word ?map? without the attendant phrase ?all over the.? They free-range into an appealingly loping, hungover kind of country-rock on ?Armstrong? and ?Air,? but check it, this isn?t Freakwater lite; here comes the gentle indie pop of ?Powerout,? and more surprisingly, the Krauty choogle of ?Mar.? Then, an almost wacky turn to grandiosity: ?Take My Wife? boasts almost Queenworthy stacked vocals, while ?Orange and Blue? is part brassy showcase for vocalist Sarah Ramey, part lush pop symphony, part galumphing carny march. Album closer ?The Great Compromise? moves explicitly toward ee-zee listening territory, gently, slowly, here?s where the pillowy organ and glockenspiel come in, a from-behind hug.

Seekonk (one of your odder-sounding band names, guess it?s in honor of the town in Massachusetts?) have their own tuneful, downbeat thing going on, they quite sweetly betray no clues as to what they?re trying to say (and why would you, when mumbly harmonies are so clearly an end in themselves?), and they are quietly confident in their ability to pull it off. This is an approach that should be adopted by as many indie pop types as possible, with credit given to Seekonk not for pioneering it, just for exploring it so well. 7/10 -- Sal Addays (27 June, 2006)