It’s easy to cite influences when talking about Brooklyn’s the Essex Green. Talismanic names—Brian Wilson, Roger McGuinn, Mama Cass—replace adjectives to form an alternative alphabet that feels both creepily incestuous and ultimately meaningless. So let’s take the band on their own terms. The Essex Green make quirky, beautiful pop songs that evoke imagined trips to places you’ve only seen in books. The voices of Chris Ziter, Sasha Bell, and Jeff Baron intertwine like madly growing plants in spring, backed by dreamscapes of jaunty guitars, organs, strings, and tambourines. On their third LP, Cannibal Sea, the trio prance and play through 12 songs with a wit and verve that is very much their own.
While the Essex Green’s first two albums were well received, a few critics sniped about them being derivative. With their latest offering, though, derivative goes eclectic and the Essex Green reach a joyful, exuberant maturity. From the laid-back, wistful country of “Sin City” to the bouncy pop of the opener “This Isn’t Farmlife,” the band skip effortlessly between sounds while staying true to their fundamental strength: slightly off-kilter bits of melodic confection that stick in your head (and teeth).
The most beguiling aspect of the Essex Green, however, is the buoyant voice of Sasha Bell, whom I would gladly listen to read endlessly from The American Heritage, Fourth Edition. On “Snakes in the Grass” she sings, “So go ahead and tell me what you want,” and I just melt. It’s springtime, for God’s sake: Cuddle up with the Essex Green.
editor@thestranger.com