Landlocked!, the follow-up to
the Gazetteers' debut album,
Territory Songs, was first made available in a handmade edition of 200, packaged in cuttings from a 1960s Hungarian atlas. Recalling the bedroom pop of Frank Boscoe's earlier band,
Wimp Factor 14,
Landlocked! features ten songs with oddly formal, occasionally clunky lyrics about a variety of offbeat topics. The painstaking songcraft really pays off on the humorous story-song "Twenty-Four Hour Ska Festival" and "Tin Anniversary," which cleverly traces a marriage through the calendar of traditional anniversary gifts. Boscoe shares the microphone with Jeannine Durfee and Andrea McEwen, whose girl-next-door vocals match the music's genteel yet homespun character. For those who loved
Wimp Factor 14 and the Harriet Records catalog,
Landlocked! will fit as comfortably as an old tee. ~ Greg Adams