The Ocean Blue's seventh full-length album, 2019's warmly produced
Kings and Queens/Knaves and Thieves, finds the Pennsylvania band somewhat more mature as dusky dream pop veterans. The album arrives six years after the equally inspired
Ultramarine and similarly offers a mix of songs that wouldn't sound out of place on any of the group's excellent albums of the late '80s and early '90s -- recorded when they were just out of high school. Still centered on the gentle baritone vocals of singer/guitarist
David Schelzel,
the Ocean Blue have never really attempted to change up their sound, which still brings to mind new wave and post-punk icons like
New Order,
the Smiths, and
Aztec Camera. That said, where once their ability to match their alt-rock influences threatened to overshadow their own knack for lyrical hooks, here they sound like masters of the genre. Cuts like "Love Doesn't Make It Easy on Us" (which features added vocals from Minneapolis-based singers Allison LaBonne and Charlotte Crabtree), and the very
Morrissey-esque "Therein Lies the Problem with My Life," are immediately memorable anthems that make the whole notion of emulating your idols while somehow retaining your own style, sound deceptively easy. Elsewhere, the band dive into the rambling folk-rock of "Paraguay, My Love" and deliciously evoke the '80s new romantic pop of
Haircut 100 on "The Limit." However, it's the title track, with its shimmering synth-and-guitar backdrop and poetic ruminations on the fragility of life and the state of the world, that best represent how
the Ocean Blue have updated their early teenage pop ennui, ably shifting forward for fans who've grown into middle age right along with them. ~ Matt Collar