Signs of Life 2004

Don’t expect the delightfully seasick electronica of Midlake’s debut to promptly throttle you with its brilliance. It’s one of those humble accomplishments that shuffles its feet about, all the while seducing you one off-balance syllable at a time. The cosmos afforded us a prophetic vision of our future and, while we can’t remember much of what we saw, this much is true: (1) We were happy and (2) “Balloon Maker” was playing in the background.