The only reason I heard this album was because it had vocal contributions by Anneke , Karyn Crisis and Kris Force . I’ve long held a torch for all three of these fine women and I had no choice but to listen to this. It all worked out superbly in the end because not only have the three women contributed something special to The Ichthyologist but Giant Squid has come out with a terrific album.

I suppose I could call this atmospheric progressive post rock but the Squid’s music is a bit hard to put in a box. The band has a knack for coming up with gentle and memorable melodies that are repetitive but also play out around the occasional heavy riff and layers of sound including a cello, trumpet, oboe, keyboards and acoustic guitars. The album is a dense concept about a man who loses everything he’s ever had and is standing in front of the sea with nothing left inside him and how he changes and what he becomes etc. etc and is based on a graphic novel that main man Aaron Gregory wrote. The lyrical concept is just as deep as the music and while it may all sound a bit pretentious, in reality it is anything but.

It’s a bit difficult to talk about individual songs on The Ichthyologist because this album really needs to be heard from start to finish. Still, Panthalassa opens the album with a melody that gets stuck in my head for days at a time complete with a mournful cello before going off into an energetic and fuzzy groove, Sutterville sounds like something you might hear in a smoky jazz bar complete with tinkling keyboards, the cello and what sounds like a saxophone in the background. Dead Man Slough sounds like something Tom Waits might have done. It’s quirky and catchy at the same time and the layers of instrumentation that the band uses is just superb on this song along with a terrific bass line. Sevengill starts slow with a beautiful cello and bass melody and a brooding vocal performance from Aaron Gregory before a cello break in the latter half of the song leads it into epic territory and the soaring vocals of Anneke. Mormon Island has a haunting and vintage performance from Kris Force and is another song that is complete doom and gloom and heavy on atmosphere while being gentle and completely captivating.

There really isn’t a bad song on The Ichthyologist. This is music of a uniformly high quality that is original and beautifully constructed and played by some very talented musicians. The album was only put out as a limited edition of 1000 copies sold through the band’s own website but hopefully some label or the other will pick this up for distribution. Giant Squid is a terrific band and The Ichthyologist deserves some widespread attention. The Ichthyologist reminds me of The Ocean’s Precambrian in that this album too will require multiple listens before you can unearth the subtleties and complexities of the music on offer. This should appeal to everybody from fans of alternative rock to doom metal.

Label - Self Released
Year of Release - 2009