Horse in
the Sea, fronted by Chicagoan Joel Janis, mysteriously disappeared in
2010. The last update I’ve found of
theirs was a simple concert announcement on Facebook dated November 4, 2010 and
a song upload on Bandcamp from December 10 of that year. Nonetheless, the project left behind one
excellent album and an equally enjoyable single. Released in ’08, I Order the Sun to Shine on Everyone is one of the tightest
conceptual albums I have heard for some time.
Quite simply, it is a collection of songs about longing, growing up, and
hope. The album feels like part of the
natural progression of music we all experience—from the angry, melodramatic exercises
in catharsis everyone listened to in junior high through the moody
introspective angst of high school, past the hip carpe diem of standard college fare.
I
Order the Sun completes the cycle. It covers themes from wistful reflection on
the passage of years in “Mosquito King,” quiet questioning in “Mannequin,” regret
in “Annabel,” to the honest admission of weakness in “Shooting Rockets.” Yet it is the title song that best captures
the mood of the album. “I Order the Sun,”
while still having a sense of poignant longing, ends on the note “Soon we’ll
see the sun shine down.”
All of the songs are carried by
Janis’s unique voice which, though laden with emotion, handles its lyrics with
a level of distance (almost aloofness) which coupled with the easy dynamics of
the music makes the album appropriate for lazy Sunday afternoons and
introspective car rides.
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