Press Play on Hey Marseilles - To Travels and Trunks

While festivals like Lollapalooza, Bonaroo and Coachella get a lot of hype year after year for their huge line-ups of headlining talent it's the weeklong events of CMJ and SXSW that routinely capture my imagination. While the big, sprawling weekend extravaganzas offer the opportunity to see scores of huge names on one bill the small-club marathons in New York and Austin allow extremely talented, criminally overlooked acts to make a leap to the national stage. CMJ 2007 yielded one such gem in the form of a solo act armed with an acoustic guitar and a set of cracked, heartbreaking pipes. This intriguing find was none other than Bon Iver, who of course went on to explode in the indie world, even capturing the attention of Peter Gabriel.

I haven't been similarly blown away by anything at these two festivals in the two and a half years since, until SXSW 2010 yielded the Seattle folk orchestrations of Hey Marseilles. The band's full-length To Travels and Trunks - written in 2008 to be re-released this June - blew me away from the first listen of the first track.

The arrangements on the album are amazing, navigating the space between simple folk rhythms and sophisticated orchestral flourishes. Constant, steady guitar riffs press steadily onward as various strings and horns flit in and out of their path. As a violin fades, a trumpet takes its place in a series of crescendos filled out by booming percussion. It's an album of grand constructions that nevertheless gets all the little things right.

The record is a chronicle of wanderlust; an ode to exploration and braving uncharted experiences. To the tune of hand claps and light, ambitious strings the irrepressible "Rio" reads like an instruction manual on how to jump headfirst into possible disaster for the mere chance at unforgettable adventure. The band sings, "I will go where the days left to breathe are not gone; are still long. I am traveling on." For those taking the leap the marching drumbeats and triumphant guitars of "Hold the Morning" promise, "We will sing to the thunder. Clap as the earth shakes."

Inherent in any hunger for newness, of course, is a restlessness with the status quo. The soft guitar picking of "Cannonballs" lays down a soft launching pad to explore this stir-crazy anxiety. "These days are not fast. Times will not last, so they say, but I'm having trouble believing." The message repeats in the waltz-like rise and fall of "From a Terrace" which calls out, "Routine is rapidly pounding her post, can't you stay in the moment that needs you the most?"

There is no fear of consequence on this record; rather an idea that failure and loss are but steps on the way to something greater. "You Will Do for Now" states in a voice full of realized mistakes and insecurity that no matter how bad today is there is always tomorrow and, "Regret won't keep the sun from the sea."

Throughout the record Hey Marseilles strives to show off the stunning elegance of intrepid risk-taking, whether it be the heady thrill of success or the poignant melancholy of failure. This is no more apparent than in album stand-out "Calabasas". In past years both the Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem have used a technique that involved repeating musical phrases but adding to them with each repetition. Each time through instruments and layers of complexity piled on resulting in an incredibly multi-textured and evocative sound. "Rebellion (Lies)" uses this affect to create a grand sense of drama and exuberance while "All My Friends" channels a tremendous sense of isolated longing. "Calabasas" uses this to draw scenes of gentle, stunning beauty.

It begins with a recurring guitar riff supporting simple lines like, "Take what you need from the words I leave from the windowsill in blue concrete." Soon enough a gentle violin comes in bowing a gentle melody and the pair are quickly joined by a booming bass drum. Backing vocals, keyboards, a cello and an accordion all in turn slide in to fill out the sound underneath a lead vocal delivering the same few lines over and over again. Elements slowly fade out and fade back in creating a gentle ebb and flow that builds into a minute and a half long strikingly graceful instrumental interlude. The intensity picks up to crashing cymbals and the vocals cut back in leading a grandiose crescendo to a moving, intense climax and a coda that finishes back with the simple guitar that opened the piece. It's an arresting, picturesque love song that conjures more meaning with five lines than a lot of bands do in an entire album.

The song is a grand gesture, an exclamation point in the middle of the record and an early entrant for song of the year.

With To Travels and Trunks Hey Marseilles have crafted an earnest, absolutely gorgeous album that displays not only skilled songwriting but also heartfelt lyricism. While the vocals sometimes skew too tender they are generally compelling and when paired with the record's fantastic musicianship result in some of the most moving pieces of music in recent memory. The album is a must-listen, and for any lucky enough to be in the tour path the band is a must-see.