Seahaven fans have been itching for new music from the band for quite a while because the last LP, Winter Forever, came out way back in 2011. A new LP, which is titled Reverie Lagoon: Music for Escapism Only, is finally on the way, but it won’t be released until spring 2014. That’s a big gap between releases, especially in an age where bands are quickly forgotten if they’re not constantly pushing a new single on various forms of social media. We can only hope that it’s worth the wait; however, in the meantime, we have a 7″ to satisfy us.
Silhouette (Latin Skin) is a step away from anything we heard on Winter Forever, and even 2010’s Ghost. With only a handful of releases under the members’ belts, Seahaven is still a fairly young band with room to expand and experiment with their sound – which is something they definitely did on the 7″.
The title track opens the record, and it’s totally different than anything anybody was probably expecting; it’s slow and clean with pop/indie undertones. The chorus sounds like it could’ve come straight off a compilation of summery love songs. The new approach is refreshing, though. It doesn’t sound like anything Seahaven has put out before, and that’s brave; it would have been easy to put out Winter Forever pt. II, but they chose to experiment a little.
The second song on the A side follows suit with “Silhouette (Latin Skin)” (it even borrows and breathes new life into a line from the first track: “Lay blame on the Silhouette / the loose sundress on Latin skin”). The ending of this song falls more in line with what I expect Seahaven to sound like, especially the distorted guitars and eerie “oh”s that close the track out.
“Phantom Family” sounds like a B-side to Winter Forever, though that’s definitely not a bad thing. Experimentation is great, but it’s nice to hear something more like what I expected going into the record, especially after hearing two drastically different songs on the A side. Honestly, this is the song I was waiting for the whole record. “The world we walk is hardly round / It’s sharp and it’s horrifying,” Soto croons over Winter Forever-esque guitar tones. This is definitely the best, most satisfying song on the 7″, which explains why it came last. The chorus is just beautiful.
