Raleigh – Sun Grenades & Grenadine Skies

Sun Grenades and Grenadine Skies, the second outing by Calgary band Raleigh, is an Aladdin’s cave of styles and ideas. Ostensibly, the band is a folk trio, comprising cello, piano, guitar. But in reality, they’re governed by no such boundaries. There are smatterings of jazz, and art rock here, with few of the song conforming to traditional structure (at least over the duration).

When it works, it’s great: the largely instrumental Fresco is lovely, as is the spacey jazz epic Puritan, both of which capture the band at its most avant-garde. Equally, the simple Astray is Raleigh at their most cogent, lucid and plaintive. Elsewhere though, it often seems a case of ‘too many cooks’. China Flowers, Still Light and Carebear are all dramatic, ambitious and eclectic. But they lack identity: there’s no killer hook or melody holding them together. Overall, it’s an album of promise, but one crying out for a serious edit.