The Sea and Cake is a magnificent indie-rock band comprised of 4 very talented and notable musicians from the Chicago indie-rock scene:
Archer Prewitt, who is an incredible guitarist and member of the soft-rock band The Coctails.
John McEntire, who is an experimented drummer, he’s also been member of many influential post-rock bands like Gastr Del Sol, Tortoise, Bastro, Stereolab, Cougar, and Trans Am, and, complementing his background, he is a good producer and also a meticulous audio engineer.
Eric Claridge, the bassist who’s also a painter and an illustrator, made, in this effort, an extraordinary collaboration with the arrangements, his bass lines always make a perfect match with the rest of each song, no matter how asymmetrical the melodies will result.
And the leader of the band and the characteristic sweet voice that is portrayed by Sam Prekop, who made two extraordinary solo albums when The Sea and Cake was on reconstruction, in fact, last year we reviewed his debut record which is a listening delight.

This month we’ve chosen Everybody, their last achievement, as Album of The Month for many reasons, one of them is because they blend a lot of colors, in a elegant and organic way, in a single work, they’ve also included a lot seventies music textures like those vintage synths and a little psychedelia, similar but softer than Yo La Tengo’s creations, in addition they re-framed the structure of the songs, previously they have used a very tight and static model, now they’ve created more complex and dynamic tracks, fortunately they’ve evolved and they took chances to make something much more creative and integral. You can feel they have made an incredible connection that sparkled the right bright and balance of every instrument and every effect.

Some insipid reviewers compare Everybody with the previous recordings by Prekop, that’s just false, I agree that some of the songs keep the use of smooth sounds, but I’m sure that one of the main goals of the band was to create something really different and original, in comparison with their previous works, you just have to listen closely. Nevertheless it would be fantastic if Sam Prekop some day ventures in changing his usual vocal stucture that could be a trademark or an obstacle in considering new possibilities, or why not? even looking for a female colaboration like Ivy’s Dominique Durand, she could be a interesting option …for example.

Everybody has to listen to this masterpiece, some critics indicate that is an album for “everybody” and in some cases they even catalogued it as a pop album, I don’t quite think so, it is a rock album as well, and a carefully well-done recording, the only thing that I would object about is the cover, why would anyone that made such a colorful and rich production, choose that grayscale cover? Nevermind.