All the elements in the title track from the New Haven-based Ports of Spain’s latest album, Able Archer, are in place from the song’s first breath. There’s Carlson’s drums, relaxed yet urgent. There’s Ilya Gitelman’s intricate, muscular guitar. And there’s Carlson’s voice, sending a melody cascading down a startlingly poetic set of words.
“Sleep through spring / You can throw it away / And lie till the onset of autumn / Cool like a knife slipping into a wave / And lithe gliding down to the bottom,” Carlson sings. “Strong square breathing I’m a leaf on a stream / An archer who’s nocking an arrow / Unfit and insistent I’m a smear on a page / Who shoots though the target is narrow.”
Able Archer, is the duo’s fifth release since 2010’s Winter’s Teeth, and they are celebrating with a show at the State House Friday evening.
On the album, Gitelman and Carlson sound as assured as they ever have — a testament to how well they have grown into the challenge they set for themselves. In Ports of Spain, Gitelman and Carlson never have just one job. Armed with an array of pedals — including, most crucially, a looper — Gitelman plays all the guitar parts in the songs live. Carlson, on drums, also lays down vocals. So the songs come together like puzzle pieces, drawing their power from their planning, from the musical architecture you can create when you put a lot of thought, all the time, into what comes next.
Perhaps most impressive, however, is that Ports of Spain rarely draws attention to how difficult it is to get this kind of music right. Gitelman and Carlson don’t show off. They just make really good pop music.
So “Able Archer” is instantly catchy — a bit of an earworm, really — full of the kind of happy-sad yearning that fills pop songs that have stood the test of time. “Cast Iron” finds the band stretching out a bit, Carlson working the upper registers of his voice while writing melodies that unfurl just a little further than melodies usually do. On “Fallow,” Gitelman shows that he can churn a guitar as well as anyone, while the verse makes quick use of a clever rhythmic hiccup to keep the ear engaged before the song opens out, at the end, into the kind of thick, soaring sound that could fill a concert hall.
On the album’s closer, “Younger Foes,” Gitelman weaves together several different guitar sounds into a warm texture for Carlson’s drums to swing through, and his voice to romp over. And in the song’s final two minutes, you might say Ports of Spain lets go, as Gitelman adds layer after layer of guitar to build the song into a chorus of stacked harmony. But just when you’re expecting a big finish, the band has one more thought, one more unexpected move. They bring it all back down where it started, and go out on a left turn.
It’s the kind of material that makes you want to see the band live — and luckily, New Haven will get to do just that. Sharing a bill with Split Coils and Mandala, Ports of Spain is ushering in its new album on one of New Haven’s newest stages. The show is advertised as a bill “stacked” with local talent. As a band that has proven to have staying power, Ports of Spain can claim some credit for keeping the bar set high in New Haven’s music scene, with the promise of still more to come.
Ports of Spain plays at the State House, 310 State St., on Dec. 14 with Split Coils and Mandala. Click here for tickets and more information. To get a hold of Able Archer, visit the band’s Bandcamp page.
