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I had barely pressed the play button on my stereo and I knew I was going to be impressed. It’s very rare that I find music that I truly like (as evidenced by many of my reviews here on the site), and it’s even more rare that I find music that transports me to a different place in my mind. Creating a scene in my consciousness for an experience in the future almost never happens to me, yet Sometimes it Rains did the impossible: 30 seconds into the first song, I was already in my car, windows down, driving down the freeway, enjoying the summer.

The album starts off with “We Can”, an instantly memorable tune that will bring you to the beach and surf with you, while your friends sit around a campfire on the sand. I’ve only lived near any kind of coastline for a mere 6 months of my 24 years in existence, and yet in the 5 minutes and 29 seconds it took for “We Can” to play through, I was able to relive every second of it. The sun burning my back and the sand burning my feet – it all came back in a heartbeat.

Directly after “We Can” comes “Motion Sickness”. While it may sound cheesy, the use of a xylophone throughout the track actually gives it quite a playful quality. It’s interesting that every time I stop concentrating on the song itself, I keep picturing a carnival on some kind of long pier at sunset. The lyrics would paint quite a different picture had the instruments been played in a more mellow way, but it’s almost as if it’s trying to paint a picture of an ending summer.

To round out the album, “You Got Me Thinking” is quite a different song from the rest of the album but still right up there in terms of listenability and production value. It’s quite a somber song compared to the rest of the record, and almost double the length as the others (it finishes at 9 minutes and 16 seconds) but at no point does it ever seem long or forced. A story of regret after a failed relationship, it is introspective and retrospective, as if the writer wanted to finally learn something from a love lesson long ago.

I’ve spent the past two hours listening and re-listening to this release, trying to come up with something negative to say. I don’t like being 100% positive because it implies that there’s nothing better that could have been done – that it was a perfect album. Unfortunately for the time being, it’s going to have to stay that way. For God’s sake, they have the entire thing available for download 100% free on their website. Absolutely recommended.

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