Best of 2009: #4 “Sahalee” by The Got To Get Got

Last year I listed The Got To Get Got as a band set to release one of my most anticipated albums of 2009, so expectations for Sahalee were obviously quite high. I previously enjoyed their 2007 EP, some unreleased/demo songs (thanks to Chad of Noyes Records), and the 7-inch single for “Rattle Off.” In other words, I knew I would enjoy their first full-length album, but wasn’t sure to what extent.

To start, I must say that Sahalee is highly listenable, as it is easily my most played album of the year. Songs like “Burn Yaletown Burn” and “War Of Letters” were first made available to me in demo form last year (as mentioned above), so by the time they made it to an official album I assumed there might be some degree of burn out, but that’s not the case. Additionally, programmers at my campus radio station made Sahalee one of the most played albums of the year, so I heard a lot of these songs at work and at home. Despite all these listens, I have not not grown tired of any of them, which says something about the enduring quality they will have in the coming years.

On first listens, I remember being drawn in by the layering of sounds. In TGTGG, Mark Mullane and Brad Lahead have pretty similar guitar tones, and when combined together they create a full sound that drives most of the songs. In Mullane’s previous band, North Of America, his guitar was often played against that of Mark Colavecchia or Mike Catano to achieve more of a post-punk/post-hardcore stylistic effect. To put it another way, I think there was more separation of guitar sounds in NOA, but that technique wouldn’t lend itself as well to a band like TGTGG. There are a couple NOA-like guitar references to be heard on Sahalee (“Hell Awaits, Maybe” and “Hey” are the best examples), which are nice, if unintentional, throwbacks to Mullane’s old band.

Much like the guitars, TGTGG rely on a lot of duality in the vocal tracks. Mullane handles lead vocals on most songs, and is often joined by Eleanor King. If she is not singing the same words, King’s voice is occasionally used to complement the sound of other instruments. Near the 2:30 mark of “Bethpage Black,” for example, she can be heard harmonizing with the more orchestral stringed instruments. To draw parallels to NOA again, Mullane, Colavecchia, and/or Catano’s vocals would often clash, which was definitely stylistic to their different genre of music. Utilizing the same technique in TGTGG probably wouldn’t work as well, so I’m glad the influence didn’t carry over.

If forced to choose a particular highlight, let’s point to the song “Peyton And Perry.” The first half of the song is a subdued affair with lightly-sung vocals, acoustic guitar, whistling, and a hint of what sounds like trumpet. Electric piano builds things up a little bit before an overdriven guitar, a huge drum fill, and more horns barge into the mix to drive up the intensity. Electric guitars carry the rest of the song until a slow fade out reveals a small string section. Of course, with an album so enjoyable, I could pick any of the songs to highlight.

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