Written by: Dave Cantrell

OK, let’s see. How many times have I begun a review with some version of ‘sorry I’m so late getting to this’? The answer is somewhere between ‘too many’ and ‘innumerable’ so perhaps, this time at least, we can eschew that intro and move straight to the crux of this November 21st-released, exceedingly fine sophomore effort from the none-more-intriguingly named The Salt Collective called A Brief History of Blindness, a title that in itself begs curiosity, all of which explains why the prospect of digging in to this particular album tucked amidst the modest stash of incomings in my office has been so gently relentless, whispering with increasing intensity ‘Hey. Hey! Remember that amazing advice you received years ago about doing everything you can in this life to avoid regret?’ Well, here we are and boy was it correct in this instance. This is, in other words, emphatically not a record anyone with any pop sense worth its Chiltonian, umm, salt would care – nor dare – to miss.

Which, with just a quick glance at the italicized ‘featuring’s abutting all eleven tracks listed on the back cover – y’know, with barely-known surnames like ‘Falkner,’ ‘Blakey,’ ‘Mann,’ ‘Mills,’ ‘Rew,’ ‘Easter’ and more including a certain ‘Stamey’ that also produced and mixed this gem thereby accounting for the sound’s seemingly effortless diamond-like clarity – can come as no surprise to absolutely anyone but, even considering all that, ABHoS still gladdens the ears and sparkles the heart to a degree beyond what all that back cover intel prepares the ever-eager listener for. It is, in short, just a damned delight full-stop, a claim that would, of course, be unclaimable were it not for the Collective’s core membership which we’ll just put here right up front before plumbing the ever-convincing depths: drums, Rob Ladd; bass, Gene Holder; guitars/sound design: Stéphane Schück; guitars: Mitch Easter; organ/piano/Nord (ie a Swedish-made synth): Wes Lachot. Alright then, let’s dive in to the (very good) goods.

After all that foregoing commentary on the production values at work on this album you’ll be heartened indeed to hear that lush/spry agglomeration of values expressed with an inspired translucence and aplomb in the opening title track where despite the band-definitive effortlessness in its complexity exudes an equally definitive warmth of tone in its vocal provided, in this case, by Oh OK and Let’s Active alumnus Lynn Blakey, resulting in one of the most engaging opening tracks we’ve heard in yonks. So primed, there’s little surprise the rest of the album follows suit over, and over, and over again.

There’s the Jason Falkner-sung “Waiting For the End of Time” with its sharp fatalistic edges honed to a point so fine as to somehow harmonize the serrated with the smooth, in the process carving out a groove-tastic gem the core of which owes not a little to Holder’s bass binding it all together like some phunk phantom hovering in the bumping magical mist. There’s “Cloud to Cloud,” sung by Nada Surfer Matthew Caws, propelled by a driving rock/pop classicism that carries juuuuust that perfect dual dash of elan and punch; there’s the way “The Waiting Game” carries itself with such near-nonchalant finesse – due in no small part to Aimee Mann’s loose but lucent vocal – that its 5+ minute length flashes gracefully by like the briefest of daydreams dreamed under a summer sun and damn if there ain’t so much more. For instance…

…how “So Sad (Don’t Let Go),” Caws again at the mic, rides a lightly string-laden propulsion into the realm of pop timelessness before “Ex Post Facto Kids,” with the venerable presence of one Mitch Easter, punches itself into the ‘classics’ stratosphere (and we would have plugged a link into that “Easter” but surely there’s no need?). Then, post-“Ex Post Facto…” comes “How We Breathe” with Blakey, Caws, and ex-Soft Boy/Katrina Waver Kimberley Rew helping helm a gem of country rock swing into the realm of instant jukebox joy but perhaps the truest kudos has to go to closer “All the Rage” that, despite its title, acts as something of a glimmering though poignant coda to the sublime foregoing, Stamey and Aimee harmonizing like a pair of Nashville twins against a backdrop drawn with enough delicate finesse (not least due the addition of guest Jennifer Curtis’s essential violin work) to warrant its own essay but we’ll save that for another day, maybe.

All said, there’s that too-often specious phrase that has in fact been uttered far too often as a kind of not-so-subtle (not to mention condescending) knock on current-day efforts in the poposphere compared to their ancestral Sixties/Seventies counterparts that’s often heard muttered under its speaker’s breath as if the hush of it makes it graver somehow – “Well, sure, there’s some good stuff out there but, really, they just don’t make ’em like that anymore” – but in this case here, well, goddamn if A Brief History of Blindness doesn’t prove such pinch-faced naysayers wrong from its very first note. Simply put, this thing’s a beauty, a masterful beauty and I’ll be happy to have it nesting in my ears for years to come. Cheers…