Great Canopy is a six piece band hailing from Pleasantville, NY. They released their debut LP Fossils last May on bandcamp, tagging their album and songs with the tongue-in-cheek moniker of “sad surf”. The sounds of “Ten” are sprawling and intense, jangly guitar punching with flourish and prog-like sensibility. The vocals mirror the instruments, pregnant with energetic punch and rawness. Each howling line is delivered with ample instrumentation behind it, giving the track a feeling of largeness in scale. Synthesizers, clashing drums, and ambient sounds give the song a tangible body, which waxes and wanes with the emotions – there are many – of the soundscape. On “Ten”, vocalist Thom Lombardi has a singing voice not dissimilar to Aaron Maine of Porches – warbling and almost-but-not-quite off-key. The lyrics are intimate, but delivered with as much power as the instruments backing them.
Great Canopy’s “Ten” sounds incredibly intentional and extensively thought out, but perhaps to a fault. The last minute of the song features an effete soundclip of children singing, detracting from the shimmery guitars a minute prior, and ending the song on a cliche note rather than a solid orchestral conclusion. Overall, however, “Tens” is a great track and I’m looking forward to future releases.
