Five-piece outfit Venice Is Sinking shapes music their own way on sophomore release, Azar. Call it ambient orchestral slowcore pop, since the 11 carefully evolving tunes are equally cinematic, expansive and conceptual.

The material carries a sense of longing, distant horizons that won’t be reached, and collapse. Inconsolable “Iron Range” has a low, transient sweep sustained by Karolyn Troupe’s solemn viola, Daniel Lawson’s reverb guitar and both musicians’ ethereal vocals. The restrained “Wetlands Dancehall” evokes the progressive melting of icecaps and inevitable rise of delta waters. Mournful “Young Master Sunshine,” tempered by tenderized trumpet, hints at pursuits never realized.

Azar is suffused with broken-down beauty and spacious inclinations that are concentrated in album closer “Charm City,” a summation of the ensemble’s otherworldliness, philosophical heart and empathy, which ends with the aptly stoic mantra, “Don’t you see that our someday/Will never be an always.”

Grade: B



Azar is currently available.