As the title suggests, this second album from The Boats
is a little gem of craftsmanship built out of extremely
intimate structures and has a truly infectious and refreshing
DIY feel to it. The cover provides even more clues to
what this album is about. A hand holds a matchbox-size
cardboard box containing a tiny piano keyboard. Entirely
made up of sounds sourced from a single piano, We
Made It For You is expectedly warm and minimal,
and shows The Boats in rather reflective mood.
Formed a while ago by Craig Tattersall and Andrew Johnson,
who also officiate as part of The Remote Viewer and
Hood, The Boats have voluntarily taken a minimalist
approach to their work, stripping the music down to
its bear essential. Follow-up to the band’s critically
acclaimed debut album, Songs By The Sea, released
last year, We Made This For You is something
of a departure from the dissident pop influences that
were found scattered over its predecessor. As The Boats
take a more experimental approach, bringing their music
to the brink of electro-acoustic, they define rather
strangely romantic miniature scenes in which tiny details
are patiently layered. Each one of these tracks resemble
minute bottled ships, and it feels as if as much patience
and minutia has gone into assembling them.
We Made This For You initially captivates,
its fragile structures threatening to fall apart at
any moment, and its broken melodies finding their way
out of the most intricate formations, only to be cut
short. However, developed over fourteen tracks and forty
minutes, the compositions become a bit of a blur and
end up merging into one another. This could be a style
effect, but the band appear too absorbed in their remote
world to notice that, on a greater scale, it progressively
looses its impact and ends up sinking. It is rather
unfortunate as the potential of this project is all
too clear right from the onset. Would this finely detailed
work have sat within a slightly more structured and
focused scope, We Made This For You might have
been nothing short of a masterpiece.
3.1/5
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