Covet – Currents EP (2015)

Back home from a successful international tour and California’s Covet are clearly soldiering on, having just released their highly anticipated EP Currents, a fitting name for music that seems to be in constant motion. Featuring, as always, captivating artwork from guitarist Yvette Young (math-rock fans may also recognize her artwork from the cover of The Speed of Sound in Seawater’s Acoustics EP and Invalids’ various albums), the album’s cover reflects the nautical concepts conveyed across the six tracks.

‘Pelagic’ prepares the listener with shifting time signatures and syncopated percussion atop tightly-woven guitar melodies that together maintain a coherent flow. The virtuoso finger-tapping that spearheads the band is no surprise to those who are already familiar with Young’s guitar work. ‘Nautilus’, the second track, introduces vocal harmonies that, paired with the sauntering groove, echoes bands like Toe and Rooftops. Like the many heads of the mythical creature it references, ‘Hydra’s many layers weave in and out of each other. Additive meters combined with smooth, jazzy chord progressions result in a very technically-driven sound.

Currents is a record that, like many of the great albums this year, has a dynamic and complex anatomy but flows gently as a whole. For anyone that has been slowly documenting the prowess of Yvette Young, this was kind of expected.