REVIEW: Danielson "Ships"

Rating: 8.5

Daniel Smith sings the kind of songs and has the kind of voice that makes passive and interested listeners alike shrug and write it off to drugs and/or mental illness.  His is the serious, wide eyed, jubilant mayhem that would likely have landed him a nationally broadcast children's television show in 1972.

Ships dabbles in the melodic psych-folk and mystic rock of those same early seventies with nods to zesty modern acts like Modest Mouse and Vic Chesnutt. Sure it's weird and the guy's part of some indie rock Christian cult, but the songs are a refreshing and thoughtful balance of irreverence and vigor.  Like Neutral Milk Hotel and The Arcade Fire, this is what earnest indie weirdness sounds like, only a little weirder and a little more fun.