The Appleseed Cast

Peregrine (The Militia Group)

By Andrea Bussell
Published: April 7th, 2006 | 9:35am

For 10 years, Kansas’s the Appleseed Cast have written songs that have always left me feeling a little strange. Peregrine, their fifth album and first for the Militia Group label, epitomizes what’s so haunting about this band: They cloak some of the most mournful sentiments and lyrics in the prettiest and hopeful-sounding instrumentation. Though they aren’t calling it a concept album, Peregrine follows a storyline and creates a mosaic of images — a daughter’s accidental death at the hands of her father, the father’s guilt, his son’s anger and grief — but regardless of the built-in imagery and pre-defined pain, the songs do what the Appleseed Cast have become masters at: capturing the ambiguousness of most emotions and occurrences.

With help from producer John Congleton (Explosions in the Sky, Modest Mouse) Peregrine achieves a brilliantly dramatic level of experimentation and a happy medium between 2003’s Two Conversations and 2001’s Low Level Owl volumes. It combines Wall-of-Sound effects — reversed drum tracks, distorted guitar delays, and lots of feedback—with all the charms and hooks of indie-pop. “Ceremony,” the album’s opening instrumental track, leads with wary finger-picking and soft, backing reverb before crashing into a swell of resolute, foreboding drums; rising, ringing guitars; and sorrowful strings. “Sunlit and Ascending” — arguably the album’s finest song — surges on climbing, melodic guitar lines that are characteristic of all of Peregrine’s best moments.

Though it doesn’t stray terribly far from where the Appleseed Cast have already been, Peregrine is definitely a stunning and ambitious work in its own right.