"The Land, The Sea & Everything Lost Beneath is an exceptional piece of work, navigating songs so sparse and fragile that a whisper could break them, into glorious crescendos of noise with tracks such as ‘Virginia’ – a track so supremely written and performed that it is only understandable to repeat it three or four times before you carry on listening to the rest of the album.
‘Kuroshio Sea’ is a seven minute extravagance of supreme exquisiteness, a song in which seven minutes don’t feel long enough – a feat not easily mastered for tracks extending past the five minute mark. Pseudo-opener (there is an opening track, but it is more an introduction than a song) ‘Howling’ is destined to be a fan-favourite as Adam Barnes evokes both Keaton Henson and Elliott Smith’s more up-tempo songs.
All in all, The Land, The Sea and Everything Lost Beneath may be the best album I’ve reviewed this year, and is certainly up there with the likes of Beck’s Morning Phase as best album for the first half of 2014." [album review July 2014]
