Sea Wolf

While Alex Church isn’t the only songwriter out there trafficking in weathered sweetness, his band Sea Wolf pulls it off a bit more convincingly than most. Even when he lays on that vibe rather thickly, as on the title track of 2007’s Leaves In The River, Church manages to temper it with quite a strong measure of catchy clarity. The 2009 follow up, White Water, White Bloom, finds Sea Wolf turning at times a little darker and at times just closer to its folk and country inspirations, opening with the gentle-yet-driven “Wicked Blood.” Church’s focus on pretty-but-not-sappy vocal melodies will serve him especially well as he sets out on his current run of solo-acoustic dates.

Updated 09/23/2010