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Consisting of three songs of equal raucousness, Seas Of Mirth’s Esmeralda EP is simply brimming with energy, humour, and a skillfully underhanded amount of musicianship.
God, I fucking loved this album. I was hooked from the beginning, just looking at the title of “Even a Bull Needs Milking.” Hilarious, unshakably catchy, and so tongue-in-cheek I practically choked, this album immediately reminded me of bands like Larry and His Flask, Gogol Bordello, Foxy Shazam, and The Darkness.
Seas of Mirth is a nine-piece band: Allan Gallon, Cannonball Paul, Zorba the Blowfish Absorber, Shitluck Lechuck, Piss-In-The-Wind Mindy, Rear Admiral Arse Beard, Jeremiah Planks-On-Fire, Fingers Mahoney, and Robrush Featherbottom.
Now tell me you don’t want to go out for a beer with these guys.
The Esmeralda EP has the same jovial, self-effacing charisma as its creators. Full of beautifully recorded instruments, the album features strings, reggae guitar stabs, random changes from major to minor, and sudden transformations into swing jazz, and is so chock-full of musicianship one could almost overlook it. But these guys can play like motherfuckers. A break in track #2, “Hands Off My Chest!” around 3:00 brings in vocal broken arpeggios as impressive as they are funny. It’s the sort of Dudley Moore humour where you laugh not only for the joke, but also for the astounding virtuosity.
“Even a Bull Needs Milking” is the perfect way to introduce an album like this. It builds up to a crazy acapella ending that genuinely made me laugh out loud. “Hands Off My Chest!” kept that going, and I won’t ruin the joke, but I encourage you to listen to its first few lyrics. “Esmeralda” is the album’s “Knights of Cydonia,” opening with a Morricone electric guitar and a galloping rhythm so infectious that at one point the singer actually shouts “yah!”
If I listened to this album on the way into work in the morning, I wouldn’t go through an existential revelation; I wouldn’t find answers to life’s great questions, and I wouldn’t find an empathetic voice to help me with my problems. I would, however, arrive at work laughing, happy, and pumped the fuck up.
Score: 5/5
Track Listing:
1. Even A Bull Needs Milking
2. Hands Off My Chest!
3. Esmerelda