Due to legalities, the band formerly known as Thee Shallows are now called Thee More Shallows, according to a sticker applied to the CD case of this band's debut album. I'm kind of wondering who threatened to sue the band-- I can't even find another band on All Music Guide called The Shallows. Hell, I can't even find this band on All Music Guide, that's how unknown they are. It's things like this that drive home just how litigious our society has become. Two completely unknown elements battling for the same moniker. It just seems silly. But whether they're Thee Shallows or Thee More Shallows doesn't matter much when you're listening to their music, so let's get our minds off of all that legal mumbo jumbo and move on a bit.

Really, calling Thee Shallows a band is being a bit liberal. They're actually a duo comprised of longtime musical collaborators Dee Kesler and Tadas Kisielius, assisted by a large rotating cast of friends-- most notably two able drummers and some string players-- and the result comes across as something like a three-way collision between Death Cab for Cutie, American Analog Set and Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. Tadas' voice is almost a dead ringer for Death Cab's Ben Gibbard, especially when he hits his falsetto, which is just about constantly. His willowy tenor is wrapped in downy layers of clean, skeletal guitars and quietly droning organ. A certain dark moodiness permeates everything, staking its claim on every second of the album, from the gentle violin-dominated instrumental "Pulchritude" to the noisy crescendo in the midsection of the title track.

By and large, A History of Sport Fishing is a nicely conceived album, opening with the tense "Where Are You Now?" Kisielius sings in a near-whisper over a bed of minimal guitars and gradually swelling organ. The band shifts the texture effortlessly throughout the song, making it one of the album's most captivating tracks. While the pacing on that song is nearly perfect, though, the rest of the album doesn't fare quite as well.

Even a sterling track like "The 8th Ring of Hell" suffers a bit from an overlong guitar intro, though the most tiresome section of the album is easily the title track's aforementioned midsection. Simply put, the band doesn't do a noisy grind well enough to justify attempting it for four full minutes. Elsewhere, songs like the instrumental "The CruXXX" manage to develop rhythmically, but offer nothing the least bit melodic to hang on to, instead simply plowing cleanly picked guitar arpeggios into the ground.

And that's the album's other primary flaw-- though almost uniformly pleasant, A History of Sport Fishing seldom casts a truly strong hook to reel you into its world. Consequently, the most memorable thing about a song like "I Do So Have a Sense of Humor" is its title, though the string arrangement at the end is kind of nice. With some work on building a few more barbs into their sound, Thee Shallows could have a good future with their newly modified name, but for now they'll have to settle for being simply pleasant.

-Joe Tangari, May 6th, 2002