Sunny Day Real Estate: The Rising Tide (2LP) [CONCORD]

Why you'll love it

This Craft Recordings reissue spreads The Rising Tide across a 2LP set. Lou Giordano produced it, and the record pushed the emo pioneers toward a widescreen, prog-tinged rock sound.

This edition

• 2LP set

About the album

This is the emo record that critics compared with Rush, Yes and Doves. Having left Sub Pop for Time Bomb Recordings and slimmed down to a trio, Jeremy Enigk, Dan Hoerner and William Goldsmith spent a month jamming with producer Lou Giordano and came out with about 30 songs.

They cut the album at Dreamland Recording Studios in West Hurley, New York, at the end of 1999, with everyone doubling up: Enigk took over bass and played piano, and the arrangements grew strings and swells to match. "One" went to alternative radio first, "Killed By An Angel" opens on a huge, ringing note, "Rain Song" and "The Ocean" lean into the record's recurring images of water and angels, and the title track closes it out on a grand sweep. Enigk's voice, freed up and soaring, drew comparisons with Jon Anderson and Bono.

Critics singled out Giordano's production and that new vocal reach, and the band toured North America behind it with in-store appearances and listening parties. It's best heard on a rainy afternoon, which in Toronto is rarely a scheduling problem.

Also at Kops: more Sunny Day Real Estate on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Time Bomb / Craft Recordings (cat# CR00069), a reissue of the 2000 album.