Leaves In The River [Clear Vinyl] (Ylw), Sea Wolf, Vinyl

Limited yellow colored vinyl LP pressing. When you consider the restless urgency in Alex Brown Church's songwriting, it's easy to connect the attitude of Wolf Larsen, the sinister, swashbuckling genius at the helm of Jack London's 1904 The Sea-Wolf, with the music that borrows the novel's name. The fact Sea Wolf is vehicle for Church's songs - who is not only Sea Wolf's songwriter and singer but also the band's only invariable member - is a story that similarly begins against a Californian backdrop. Born in the small gold rush town of Columbia, Calif., Church's musical memories were shaped by ad-hoc bluegrass outfits playing for tourists on sidewalks of his hometown and platters of Beatles and Willie Nelson on his mom's turntable. The songs of Sea Wolf's first full-length effort, Leaves In The River are awash with longing for distant places visited, lived and loved, and are molded by the geography of his past - the long, winding descent from the Sierra foothills to the hazy shores of Barbary Coast, where Church has always gravitated. And, like the captain in the book, they are resilient, restive, and deceivingly sophisticated.