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With ex-Hood and Remote Viewer first-mates manning the decks, The Boats gently sail through oceans of tears that they seem unwilling, or unable, to escape from. And for their misplaced melancholy, we're enormously happy. Like Low, Empress and Boards Of Canada crammed into a cheap room rented at a remote heartbreak hotel, The Boats capsize mellow mechanics and gushing guitars through a delicate dust-encrusted, piano-flecked fog. Then when a lone quiver of a voice - simply credited to "Elaine" - sporadically interjects tiny sprinkles of ghostly magic across their bows, those goose-pimples stand to sharp attention like (hardly) never before. Once you've sailed in these waters, you'll search for shore no more.

Ian Fletcher
February-April 2005

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