Of all the
Sarah bands,
Brighter were probably the most reliable. Not for them the highs and lows of romance and life; they stuck to the resolutely melancholy side of the equation at all times.
Matinee already complied the group's singles and EP tracks on 2003's excellent
Singles 1989-1992, and
Out to Sea is a slightly more ambitious project that contains the group's lovely 1990 mini-LP
Laurel plus a batch of tracks released on flexi discs (the missing pieces from the earlier comp) and six unreleased songs.
Laurel is a tiny masterpiece of sadness and regret set to pretty melodies and sung by
Keris Howard in the kind of sweet and tender voice that sets indie kids' hearts a-flutter and sets rockers' teeth on edge. It's one of the best long releases in the
Sarah catalog and it's great to have it on CD. Of the six unreleased tracks, two of them were recorded at the
Laurel session and would have actually added to the record's strength, especially the incredibly jangly
"Wallflower." The other four were recorded at an earlier session and were all scrapped in favor of the songs that made up
Laurel. It was a wise decision on the band's part, as they are slightly weaker and less majestically sad songs -- still, it's nice to hear them. Even more pleasing are the flexi tracks compiled here. They were frightfully rare, and even if you were lucky enough to own them, the records no doubt began disintegrating after the fourth or fifth play. Just hearing the rocked-out
"Next Summer" and
"Looks Like Rain" again makes the whole disc worthwhile. Between this disc and
Singles 1989-1992, it's clear to see that
Brighter were one of the better bands to surface out of the late-'80s and early-'90s indie pop scene. Thanks to
Matinee for documenting them so fully. ~ Tim Sendra
