Starting with a breezy, uptempo song that’s part motorik zone, part kicking it on a relaxed afternoon, Harbors finds All Tiny Creatures in engaging mood throughout, letting the music convey most of whatever message Thomas Wincek and his numerous collaborators and bandmates might have. Said message can perhaps best be called pleasure in sound; there’s an engaging, almost giddy feeling throughout even when the few direct vocal parts aim for the quietly sung and absorbed. The complex interweaving of such parts on “Cargo Maps” is almost easily missed by the martial drums, cowbell, and bubbling keyboard swirls, for instance, while hearing the soothing sighs underpinning “Breathing Set” and its out-of-the-gate rush of percussion and keyboards adds just the right feeling of elegiac contemplation. The steady-as-it-goes swing and stomp of “Aviation Class” and the calmer concluding number “Plankton March” further demonstrate the group’s ability to play it a little more straightforwardly, for whatever reasons. Meanwhile, the short “Valves or Hatches” deserves a note on its own just for how engaging the band’s keyboards can be on their own, a quick collage of treble and nervous energy, while “Triangle Frog,” with only occasional drum hits as the band lets an exultant shoegaze flow of feedback reach to the heights, also demonstrates All Tiny Creatures’ further range. – Ned Raggett
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