WHAT WE HAVE SOWN

The Pineapple Thief's sixth album "What We Have Sown", while considered a regular album, is also made up of songs from different periods in the band's history. It was recorded during the recording of "Tightly Unwound" over an 8 week period. The first three tracks are outtakes from other albums.

"All You Need to Know" is from the "10 Stories Down" sessions. It is pretty much a basic Pineapple Thief track, nothing amazing about it, just basic. "Well, That's What I Think You Said" has a mid-eastern hook played by a violin a the beginning, and is a much better song. It has a "Radiohead" vibe to it. In it's short 5 minute span, it goes from mid tempo, to minimalism, to very upbeat at the end. The same vibe is there for the next track also, "Take Me With You" is a more laid back, mysterious song with some atmospheric guitar. Bruce Soord does a decent Thom Yorke impression in both tracks.

"West Winds" is an instrumental track. We finally get a track that nears the 9 minute mark here as everything prior to this was around 5 minutes. It starts out in a subdued manner with echoing guitars swirling around. Everytime you think things are going to pick up, they end up leading up to a false climax or it doesn't last very long. Not much to get excited about here. "Deep Blue World" continues with the Thom Yorke impression in the vocals and a strumming acoustic guitar, but the strings added in here are a nice touch. Not a bad song with a nice lushness to it, but up to this point, there really isn't anything that's very progressive to get excited about yet.

So, the last track has some promise since it is a 27 minute song called "What We Have Sown?" In the first 5 minutes it changes from spacey, to intense, back to atmospheric again. There are some nice sounds here, and that's before the vocals come in. The beat is rather slow and laid back with Bruce's nice voice pushing things along. There is a "whining" sound that almost sounds like a saw which gives some good atmosphere. Without much change in the first 10 minutes, things just seem to plod along however, no matter how nice it is, it would be good to have some more emotion and mood swings added in. After this, there is a nice guitar solo though, but the beat stays the same. The beat and everything else falls off and there is an ambient section with a low, thumping "electronic" feel, and synths start to add texture. A synthesized percussive sound starts and persists for a while. Finally, at 15 minutes we get some intensity when we get some fuzzy guitar added in and some counter melodies start to take shape. Now it's getting interesting. What's this? Another great guitar solo with supporting keys that almost make things sound industrial. Nice touch. Things reach full intensity when we break out of this at 19 minutes and we are back to ambience again. There are some nice effects against a mid tempo beat, then we get some processed vocals. There are some nice touches in this track, one gets the feeling it plods along too much though. At times it feels like it's just trying to take up time between the good moments. People like to compare this song to "Echoes" by Pink Floyd, but other than length and a few beeping noises, there is no comparison. I get lost so easily in "Echoes" that I don't notice how long it is. In this track, I keep wondering how long it is going to take before the next good thing happens. Not bad, but it could have been trimmed down to 15 minutes and have a better impact.

Overall, this is not a great album for Pineapple Thief, just a good one with a few high points, but not enough. The album was released as a "Thank You" for their old record label, and, quite frankly, it sounds like that, just something nice but not a lot of effort there. 3 stars.