Festival Records
2004
A Song Is A City
About This Album
Eskimo Joe's follow-up to their 2001 full-length debut Girl shows the band trying to shake off any expectation as well as the ghosts of their early releases. Simple, even juvenile songs like "Sweater" and "Turn Up Your Stereo" from the late '90s earned Eskimo Joe a place in many an Aussie teenager's brain, but after the modest success of their first album, it became clear that the group was growing up, and so was their music. After the clumsy opener "Come Down" fades, a driving melodic piano line ushers in "From the Sea," still hailed by some as the band's finest hour. Released weeks before the album, this first single signalled the beginning of a new era in more ways than one (Eskimo Joe were dumped from EMI's Modular label and then signed by Festival Mushroom in 2002). Vocalist Kav Temperley revealed that for this album, the band turned to their coastal hometown of Fremantle in Western Australia for inspiration, hence the album's title, and "From the Sea" is a clear indication of this. Bringing in the piano as a focal point on some cuts shows the direction Eskimo Joe are leaning towards, and they extend its use on their third album Black Fingernails, Red Wine.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,7 and 9)

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