Sunday Music Spotlight - The High Water Marks

Let me tell you a story.  It’s a typical boy meets girl story.  Well, it’s a typical boy meets girl, joins a band with girl, marries girl, girl forms side band with other boy, boy and girl get divorced, girl and other boy get married story.  Got that?

The full story goes something like this:  In 1991 Robert Schneider was introduced to Hillarie Sidney through mutual friend Jim McIntyre.  Sidniy and McIntyre were in a band, and soon asked Schneider to join.  That band became The Apples in Stereo.  As the band grew closer together so did Schneider and Sidney.  Eventually they got married and had a kid.  Apparently things didn’t go so well however, as by 2004 the couple divorced.

Meanwhile, Sidney met Norwegian singer and guitarist Per Ole Bratset during an Apples in Stereo show in Oslo.  The two hit it off an started writing songs together.  As a side project from The Apples, Hillarie recorded Songs About the Ocean with Bratset under the name The High Water Marks.  Over time the two started spending more time together, then got married.  In 2006 Hillarie left The Apples in Stereo to focus on The High Water Marks.

That fun story tells you about how The High Water Marks came to be, but tells you nothing of what they are.  They are a tight power pop quartet (they added Jim Lindsay and Mike Snowden).  They make straight-ahead, good, honest music.  The kind of music that makes you bob your head in three-minute-or-less chunks.  You know, like old-school Apples in Stereo…

Enough of this…on to the music!

The High Water Marks - Good I Feel Bad

Like all the songs on Songs About The Ocean, “Good I Feel Bad” gets in, does its thing, and gets out.  There’s nothing superfluous about it at all.  It’s simply a well-crafted lo-fi pop song.  Hillarie’s vocals are simple and straightforward.  The guitars are jangly and rough.  And the whole package just works.  It’s hard to listen to without thinking of The Apples in Stereo’s early albums.

The High Water Marks - Leaves


This is a cut of the band’s second album, 2007’s Polar. It’s another of Hillarie’s songs, though she and Per Ole switch off on vocals. Interestingly enough Hillarie plays guitar in The High Water Marks after she played drums in The Apples in Stereo.

Links

Official Site
Buy Songs About The Ocean
Buy Polar