The watery, gazing pop of Austin band International Waters sets you on a course toward a soft landing. You start traveling at an incredible rate of speed and you get going slightly out of control, to where the body is starting to rattle and you get afraid that things are going to start flying off, ripping free because of the velocity.
But what you keep thinking, in the back of your head, is that you're hurtling toward a pile of mattresses. It won't be a painful belly-flop, but more of a delight. When you hit, you're going to love it. It's going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. The songs are constructed to make you feel as if you were rollicking in some midnight blue waves, never sinking, just enjoying wherever they might be taking you. They are the daydreams that you never had. You're just getting them transferred over to you. Even when the daydreams get a little haunting or less than idyllic, they sort themselves out nicely.
When lead singer Mitch Calvert sings, "She makes me hurt when I feel good," it doesn't sound like an accusation, but more of an emotion that's wanted. It's one that he's gladly letting sidle up to him and give him a peck. It could be a new love shining in and just the thought of it is enough to make your legs first tingle and then hurt, as if circulation had been cut off. None of it is for the faint of heart, but the waters that this group takes us into refuse to ever cool. Calvert can sing, about being a prisoner of his own mind and about how "freedom is a nice trick/heaven is an ice pick," but we're still as sure as we ever were that we'd like to try both on. We'd like to see where these loves go. We'd like to see exactly how it feels when we hit.