With a line-up comprising two Scots (David and Alan Skirving), a Spanish vocalist (Sandra Belda Martinez) and a Japanese keyboardist (Madoka Fukushima), California Snow Story look like a peculiarly international gathering.There’s little doubting that Skirling (David) is the band’s driving force, as much of this debut album owes a debt to his original band, Glasgow’s Camera Obscura. The tone is one of downbeat, slightly-intellectual melancholy, and if it wasn’t for Fukushima’s shimmering keyboards they could all too easily have become Camera Obscura Mark II.
Luckily, though, the introduction of a distinctly electronic sound separates Skirving’s two bands, even if California Snow Story do come off slightly worse for the comparison. While Camera Obscura still maintain a strong pop sensibility beneath the folksy sackcloth-and-slippers act, California Snow Story are a less commercial prospect. One track blurs into another with worrying regularity, and while Close To The Ocean paints an overall picture of a hazy, shimmering coastline there’s too little variation to break its almost hypnotic spell. ‘Consolation Song’ offers a brief slice of acoustic folk-pop in the album’s centre, but the variation is only a slight one, and they soon return to their slow, steady path. Probably the perfect album to listen to while chilling out by the Californian shoreline, but unlikely to appeal to those of us who have to make do with Portobello Beach.