The Finch at the Feeder

Anathallo came to me during a bleak musical drought. I hadn't heard an album that was both new and exciting to me in months, and I was increasingly unenthusiastic about bands and records that I had previously liked. I remember a nagging fear that perhaps I had "outgrown" being passionate about music, and that I was only a few ambivalent ticks away from becoming one of those people that didn't care what they listened to, as long as it had a beat.

Then this CD fell in my lap, and all of that was inverted, refuted, and promptly dismissed. Anathallo had produced something I’d never heard before. As soon as the chorus sang “who could imagine” and came back with “a holiday at the sea,” I knew that this was a band I could fall in love with.

The album is quite short (only three songs!) but there is so much packed in there that it’s hard for me to call A Holiday at the Sea an EP. It’s hard to find an element in here that didn’t stand out to me as completely unique at the time. It is immediately obvious that the folks who put this together are a bunch of band kids who grew up listening to early indie rock and going to church. The title of the album comes from C.S. Lewis’ The Weight of Glory, and there something in the arrangement of all three songs that suggests traditional hymns as a major influence. Marching band percussion, a killer horn section, pitch-perfect melodies and dynamic, almost elusive instrumentation were blended seamlessly in a time when these aspects fell somewhere between uncommon and unheard of.

Still, the record is more than just a bunch of choirboys having fun. There is a strong element of spirituality here, no matter what your beliefs are. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who could give Holiday a good listen and be unmoved.

I went on to see Anathallo live which is nothing short of a musical miracle. This was even truer back then than it is today. Love for Anathallo led me to bands like Sufjan Stevens, Mates of State, and Owen, and suddenly music was interesting again. My tastes have evolved since, but all that evolution comes back to this record (which I still love to listen to), making it a must-include for my top 11.