Album Review: Winter People - A Year At Sea

Sydney six-piece Winter People have bubbled under the surface of the Australian musical consciousness. Two violins and four voices give rise to beauteous harmonies behind Dylan Baskind's vocals (who sounds eerily similar to The Panics' Jae Laffer on occasion) and offer a swirling, atmospheric aesthetic that swells to the brim with emotion, which is perfectly captured on debut record A Year At Sea. Baskind's verbose lyricism is evident from opening track The Banker's Lament, a song that is probably the most intricate and diverse of the entire record, swaying between OK Computer-era Radiohead-esque guitar squalls, choral sighs and the haunting reverie of a businessman who has lost his way. Yet this is also a ruse, as there isn't another track quite like it.

The power of Winter People lies in their mastering of the loud/quiet dynamic, the ability to craft an epic swell of sound within a four- to five-minute folk song – most evident on the salubrious Time Out Of Mind – and juxtapose it with plaintive beauty, such as the hushed elegance of Valley Hymn or the rustic faded photograph that is My Town. But it is when it's all crammed into the one song that they truly shine and, when married to Baskind's affected lyrics, songs like Two's Company and singles Gallons and Wishingbone truly soar.

It's clear that the band owe much to the regal elegies of The National, yet it is the marriage of this with folk whimsy amidst soaring crescendos of guitar and violin that takes A Year At Sea in a different direction. Focused, resolute and challenging, this is an assured debut.