If The Shoe Fits, Wear It, Or Burn It, Or Run With It: A Review of Strange Mornings in the Garden by The Loyal Seas (Tanya Donelly)

By Berlinda Recacho

I sometimes hesitate to call music "beautiful" at the risk of sounding overly dramatic and implying that its content lies shallow on the surface and doesn't permeate through to a meaningful and intelligent core. The Loyal Seas break free of this glib assumption, taking their beauty and brains and running into Strange Mornings in the Garden (2022), 10 songs that gorgeously illuminate the fallibility of relationships. "I'm your house of mirrors/Just as you are mine/Every angle featured/Every scar and bite/Every beauty spotted/Every hidden side," Tanya Donnelly (Throwing Muses, The Breeders, Belly) sings alongside a plaintive guitar in "Driving with a Ghost." The presentation matters here as poetic lyrics and musical skill converge into eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of love, like concentric circles rippling out from a thrown stone into still water. In "Come Around Again" the other half of the duo, Brian Sullivan (Dylan in the Movies) laments: "And maybe we said/some pretty mean things/You're stuck in my head/I'm under your skin/If this is the end/then let it begin."

As always, Tanya Donelly can knock you over with a feather. Her voice curves, modulates and adapts to any situation, yet she is always recognizable as herself. Brian Sullivan's deep baritone serves as a fitting counterpoint. Bright jangly guitars pair with strings and gentle percussion. The imagery brings the situations to life. The production suits the different types of songs, from indie-pop to country ballad. The Loyal Seas maintain their collective identity through changes in tempo and genre. Even when unplugged and stripped down, tracks like "Swimmers in the Gold" and "Early Light" are no less powerful.

Donelly came of musical age in the heyday of alternative rock, a touchstone celebrated in the effervescent title track, which veers from devotion to obsession in one fell swoop: "I'll sing for you though I've never sung before/I'll throw a concert in your hall... I'll paint for you though I've never painted before/I'll leave a mural on your wall... I'll dance for you though I've never danced before/I'll pirouette until I fall... Just to see your look of awe/When you know the tragic depth of my love." Upbeat tunes are waylaid by introspective words. In "You, Me and the Sea" Sullivan sings the deep shadowy afterimages to Donelly's sparkling brightness: "We're cold and we're lonely tonight/Your lips are making shapes/Those pretty shapes they make/I believe we were stolen from the beautiful and green/You and me." "(So Far From) Silverlake" charts the itinerary of a couple that can't quite catch up, who might in fact be running from each other, a long-distance call-and-response through time and space. Sullivan seems surprised by the observation, "You and I look so great/the further I drive away... You and I shine so bright/as soon as we're out of sight." Donelly is quick to respond with a clever comeback/put-down: "No love lost, lost boy." The solemn melody of "Last of the Great Machines" transforms into an anthem of forgiveness: "I believe you thread the meridians/With every heart you've taken/And store the bones in your hollow... And I will haunt the hollow of you/I chase your story down/to where the river meets the sound/And I will hold all the hurt/I will hold you /if it's the last thing I do."

Driven by snappy drum-fills and haunted by the echoes of Donelly's past bands, "Mary Magdalene in the Great Sky" is an elegy for lovers too dazzled and distracted by what they want to believe: "Moths burn on the porch light tonight/and every night/We hear them fall like cotton balls/Meanwhile there's a ripe berry moon above/But they fall for the nearer easy glow And isn't that/something like you and me?" The Loyal Seas are especially talented at creating hooks and rhyme patterns that don't just repeat, they resonate. "And if the shoe fits/if the shoe fits/Wear it/or burn it /or run with it." Donelly advises in the catchy, breezy "Milkweed": "You don't take a step that isn't already on your way/You raise a glass/a fist, a flag, a kid, a sail/Then raved and railed against your fate/This too one day will blow away/Like milkweed on the wind."

Cultivating a musical side-project must be like tending a plant that only flourishes under certain conditions. The nascent partnership might be awesome in theory, but to make it a reality, schedules must align; songs must be written, performed, and recorded; and the give-and-take of collaboration must take place. These efforts tend to be ephemeral, but a single great album is better than a couple of half-hearted tries. I hope Tanya Donelly and Brian Sullivan buck the one-off trend and release a sophomore effort as The Loyal Seas. Until then, I'll be spending more time wandering their garden grounds, taking in the spectacular views.

Strange Mornings in the Garden by The Loyal Seas is out now. Details below.

[Photo: The Loyal Seas Bandcamp]