It has been over ten years since their first album and, granted there has been a big shift in the personnel on board, the group are barely recognizable in terms of sound and volume. This fifth album is their quietest, with all muted moods and introspective songs. It is a solid release by the band and, although sharing on paper many traits with the folk revival/fad of recent years, sounds like its own little world. The songs here are calm and tender; the album has a soothing effect on me from the moment it starts.
The sedate pace of Little Waves make for a relaxing listen; the ten songs are not quite lazy but certainly calm and unhurried. Gentle acoustic guitar forms the basis for the musicians to add the occasional detail such as trumpets and the odd electric guitar line. There is a strong sense of the members of Crescent giving each other space such as on "Nearly Ready," where the brass wind instruments are introduced but only for short intervals, making them fit in naturally with the simple arrangement. One of the best songs on the album is "Come into the Shade," which is based around a gorgeous and slightly off-kilter melody and snatches of audio recordings of people talking. The song has a grainy texture, sounding like it was unearthed rather than recorded by the band.
The croaky vocals on "Our River" come as a surprise after Matt Jones' wonderfully hushed singing on the rest of the album. Jones has a voice hewn from granite most of the time but here his voice is a particularly crumbly piece of stone, the cracks adding buckets of character to this song. As a final track it closes off the album perfectly, his tired and broken voice can go on no more. On this song, and indeed throughout the album, his lyrics are proficiently written yet completely natural and uncomplicated sounding. Jones comes across as being comfortable with his words; he does not seem to feel the need to add dramatic inflections to get the point across. Much like the music, the lyrics are straight to the point and given their own space.
It would be unfair to compare Little Waves to Crescent's earlier output as they may as well be a completely different band in terms of sound. This is as good as the early albums but in the same way that a nice cup of tea is as good as a sandwich. Most people will like both but there will be the odd person who will not like this particular cup of tea. However, all food talk aside, what is most impressive about this album is the fact that far from sticking in a rut, Crescent continue to try new things and most importantly do these new things well.
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