When their debut Five Roses came out in 2007, Miracle Fortess were still a largely unknown group. In fact, they weren’t even a group (yet), but rather the solo project of Graham Van Pelt, a member of Montreal dance-pop group Think About Life. Nevertheless, the album quickly struck a chord with the press, making its way onto the Polaris Prize shortlist mere weeks after its release. It struck a chord here, too: Five Roses is, without hesitation, one of this writer’s favourite albums, ever. Its feedback-drenched guitars and '60s pop melodies combined to create something truly special.
So, naturally, after such a long gap between albums, any fan would be apprehensive about something new. Thankfully, despite taking what seemed like forever to come out, Miracle Fortress’ new album Was I The Wave? was worth waiting every second. Whereas the first album owed much to Brian Wilson, the new batch of songs takes more from another Brian. Yes, Brian Eno’s imprint is all over this album, whether it’s one of his vocal works like Another Green World (which Van Pelt takes cues from in the brilliant sequencing of the record, with songs split up by lovely instrumentals), or ambient affairs (opening track "Awe" sounds like a lost cut off of Cluster & Eno).
While Five Roses had more straight up pop songs, Was I... satisfies in other ways. As mentioned before, it's obvious that a lot of care went into the album's song cycle. The album's most challenging (but excellent) songs make up the first half of the album, while all the real earworms start on Side B (think of it as the opposite of David Bowie's Low). Still, it's an effective strategy. As soon as it's done, you're going to want to flip that record and start over, guaranteed.
(Miracle Fortress will be performing live in our shop on Fri. May 13 at 4pm.)