If you’ve seen Jaws, you know the story. Two days out of Guam on a three day cruise to Leyte for training, still kicking the Geiger from delivering parts of the nuclear bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima, the USS Indianapolis unwittingly found itself in the glare of Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto’s periscope. Load the torpedoes. Seal the inner doors. Flood the tubes. Open the outer doors. Two of Neptune’s rockets later, and Hashimoto would cripple the ship, sending it to sea floor never to be found and setting the stage for the greatest naval disaster in US history. Of the 880 men that didn’t go to Davey’s Locker from the outset, only 317 were pulled out of the water four days later. The heat. The dehydration. And the largest ever battle in an eternal war dotted through history with skirmishes: that between sharks and sailors. No one knows how many the casualties were on either side, but it was a slaughter with the fins carrying the day and the dead descendants back to deep waters from which they evolved.

They are both creatures of the sea, sharks and sailors; one upon it and one beneath. The duality is near perfect. One has been romanticized in song and story, from the earliest recorded history to every Tuesday night on the Discovery Channel. The other is loathed and feared, a black-eyed menace hunted to near extinction. Neither is as good, bad or indifferent as our narratives allow, but both fear and would kill the other should they stray across the edge that separates the domain of lungs from the kingdom of gills. So to do we find contradicting forces in the music of Sharks and Sailors, especially on this their fist full length. Angels whispering into canvas sails to bring one home versus rows of jagged teeth to part one with their skin and marrow. Leathered thought versus an instinct to commit unwitting murder.

Though not always manifest through the sheer (some might say searing) volume of their live performances (our favorite quote on the matter: “it IS Phil playing the drums, afterall”), S&S have scraped much of the barnacles from their Cutty since their debut outing. The gradation allows a more granular approach to their music; it’s no longer the hearty pleasure of impending cochlear destruction. This expresses itself primarily through the vocals and the guitars (the drums, though low enough in the mix to save one from the curse of Beethoven, sound like they are being hit even harder than before). In the place of hurricane-condition shouts, we find singing that is downright melodic; guitars that are let to ring rather than thrust as harpoons. Builds Brand New still has obvious links to their heavier past, such as on tracks like “Rickshaw” that schleps the weary seaman forth from the heavier grit of EP’s “Topple the Pillar” and indeed the great syruped styrofoam cup tradition of scewed metal from the 713’s past (Menace of a Heartless Monster, Rustler, God’s Temple of Family Deliverance, etc).

The title track and “Cliffs” are particularly good examples of their evolving direction, with Melissa Lonchambon barely raising over an ethereal coo and Mike Rollin emoting with the best of the Midwest (but, you know, not in a pansy way). But always the Tope, the instrumentation; the leviathan swiftly approaching from behind and crushing you beneath the weight of the seas before you even have a chance to drown. The dynamics on this record are captivating. Like many who don’t rock at full sails every waking moment, you can anticipate their changes coming, but that doesn’t necessary stop one from learning that the word “boom” has its origins in sailing. These are rough seas, but they’re an absolute pleasure cruise to ride. Recommended.

Catch Sharks and Sailors swabbing the deck and your face at their CD release party, tonight at Walter’s on Washington with Ume (who, coincidentally, also have a sea beast on their record) and the Jonx (who play a mean game of pool, the sharks). In case the gratuitous plugs haven’t sunk in by now, The Skyline Network’s own DJ Under Warranty will be on hand playing a full set of the best of Houston. Party.