Brent Randall & His Pinecones
We Were Strangers In Paddington Green
Endearing Records/Just Friends 2009

One does not often come across a sound so unique, as that of Brent Randall & His Pinecones. The Halifax based band’s debut full length, We Were Strangers In Paddington Green, was released earlier this year, closing out a four year period since the release of their first recording, the Quite Precisely EP. The positive reception garnered by Quite Precisely set some pretty high expectations for We Were Strangers, all of which the band surpasses on this latest disc.

The album is produced by Jason MacIssac and David Christensen from the Heavy Blinkers, along with Randall. We Were Strangers features a wide array of notable East Coast cameos, including Christensen, Kinley Dowling, David Miles, Ben Ross and Kris Pope. This baker’s dozen of hazy melodic pop songs are broad in scope hard to sum up. The album ensconces the listener in somewhat of a magical ambiance, where anything seems possible. Once inside this fantastic atmosphere, you surrender control to the soft stylings of Brent, who acts as a tour guide of the album. He takes us on a journey that encompasses a lifetime. The album begins with the youthful energy of Strange Love, progresses to finding your soul mate in Bluebirds, Flowers, And Other Things, and even further to the learned understanding visible in Slumberjack and The Absence of Mine. We Were Strangers closes on the simple, yet beautiful Sunbeam Song.

Fans of The Beatles and The Kinks will find happy parallels in Randall’s fanciful sound. The diversity within the instrumentation – the album is a collision between a piano rock band and a full symphony – creates a wall of sound on every track. We Were Strangers In Paddington Green is one of the most original CD’s in recent memory. Brent Randall & His Pinecones and their innovative layered sound have truly succeeded in this first full length endeavor. Here’s to many happy returns.