They say that you should never judge a book by its cover and it would seem that the same could be said about CDs too. “Mermaid” by Swiss band Joan & The Sailors has a dull grey cover but the music contained therein, whilst often dark, is far from dull.
Complex and convincing, “Mermaid” is the kind of album that you grow into. You can’t just listen to it once and be impressed and I doubt that any of the songs contained therein were ever conceived that way. Listen to the plucked intro to “Out of the Door” and the way it leads you directly to the beguiling voice of Joan Seiler. This band knows what they are doing and do so with intelligence and subtlety.
I came to think of the songs on these albums as little fables as they don’t really seem like conventional songs with some sounding like they should be, in an ideal world at least, in the soundtrack to a Fassbinder movie. The splendidly bleak “Bound To” is a fine example of this. Perhaps the most effective moments are found in the more delicate songs with a spell being beautifully cast in the soundscapes of “Jailheart” and the Piaf style arthouse magnificence of “Où est-tu?”. However, I think that the defining song on this album is the simply beautiful, if dark, “Break of Dawn”. That song is worth the price of admission alone.
All told, Joan & The Sailors have made an elegant and rewarding album with “Mermaid”. Give it your time and it will captivate you.