Maritime

Glass Floor (2004)

Matt_Whelihan

Maritime is a power pop band that features Davey Von Bohlen and Dan Didier of the Promise Ring and Eric Axelson of the Dismemberment Plan. I was excited to hear something new from Von Bohlen, but a little skeptical after the experimental layered ambience of the last Promise Ring album, Wood/Water. Interestingly though, Glass Floor, the new full length from Maritime, is not the next logical step after Wood/Water but instead seems to be the next logical step after Very Emergency, the Promise Ring album prior to Wood/Water.

The album is not as stripped down or fuzzy sounding as Very Emergency, but is also not as textured and subdued as Wood/Water. The tone is a happy medium of bouncy pop with catchy hooks and melodies that still finds time to experiment with extra instrumentation like horns and keys. Von Bohlen's signature, sometimes quirky, sometimes strikingly poetic lyrics are also present. Lines like, "we're kicking everybody out/ because the party's getting way too loud/ and the kid in the back is tearing all of my posters down/ now the Cars are saying ‘shake it up'/ but I've been shaken up enough," shows Von Bohlen's sense of humor is still in tact while lines like, "my life is marathon our milk and honey days are gone/ the short waves have taken the long way home/ the four corners are neatly folded sound the bell/ the war is over/ walls are just sand and paper and sin," show Von Bohlen's penchant for interjecting complex lyrical content into an otherwise simple pop song.

You may be assuming that Maritime is simply a Promise Ring clone, but it's not. Von Bohlen has shed all of his emo song writing skills for a more mature pop sound. Maritime's songs may be the most well crafted ones he has ever written. They may not be extremely intricate or groundbreaking, but they are well written, catchy enough to hum along too, and, like a lot of Von Bohlen's past material, fun.