Review Summary: Currents has it's moments, but they're few and far between.
Currents is Eisley's fourth outing, and their first without a major label behind them. The band have spoken out about how freeing the creative process with this record has been for them without label executives breathing down their necks telling them what to write and how to sound. Honestly though? Eisley may have benefited more this time around if they had a few outside voices having some input.
The songs meander along without any real purpose or direction, and I found myself tempted to press the skip button on more than one occassion. It's disappointing because on "The Valley" Eisley proved that they could write pop songs oozing brilliance - but here something just seems to be missing. Only two songs really stand out - the title track "Currents" and the atmospheric "Drink The Water". Stacy's voice in the latter sounds otherworldly, and if the whole record had taken the same direction as this song... well, it would just simply be a lot better.
Instead, they chose to include lazy filler material like "Real World" and "Find Me Here". Both of these songs, and indeed nearly the whole record, remind the listener of the worst moments from Eisley's early albums. They're sickly sweet, boring and the instrumentals are uninspired.
"Save My Soul" starts off sounding promising, but the lyrics, while not particularly bad, are clunky and don't seem to fit the melody. This happens a lot throughout the record, and as I said before they aren't bad exactly, they just aren't that interesting. For all the words they have crammed into this record, Eisley don't seem to be saying anything.
Currents has it's moments, and when the get it right, they really get it right. Overall though, Currents is too self indulgent and just simply not as interesting or tight as their previous work. Hopefully on their next release the band can hone in on the dark sound they experimented with on "Currents", "Drink The Water" and "Blue Fish", but until then, I think I'll be giving this one a miss.
