There is a darkness lurking under the shimmering notes of this album. The waves of orchestral strings attempt to protect the listener from the melancholy contained, but the depth of that raw feeling is too powerful to ignore or wish away. The idea that sadness can be beautiful is a well worn theme in music, but here it’s almost as if The Coral Sea is making the claim that for beauty to exist, it inherently has to be sad. What impresses me the most about Volcano and Heart, is how head on that sadness is confronted.
No one is wallowing or despondent. The sorrow isn’t debilitating. If anything, there is a desire to experience it completely, letting it, to not necessarily define us, but to play some small role in who we are. This acknowledgement allows us to push past and partake of the rich beauty within these songs and within our own lives.