It seems a few local bands these days are paying homage to the Northwest's nautical history. At least each one brings something different to the music table: Yacht, with his one-man electronic band hyper antics, BOAT with their lo-fi silly-lyric-filled indie-pop.

And now Ships, who are the new kids on the shoe-gaze, post-rock block. I caught them last night at the Crocodile opening up for Trauma Hawk and Nightlife. Their music is along the lines of My Bloody Valentine, with plenty of "wall of guitar" breakouts and heavily reverbed vocals set slightly behind that wall. They also boast one of my favorite band accessories, a female bassist. Throw in a keyboardist, and this band really rocks.

What also makes this band ear-catching is the fact it's almost like a Seattle all-star group. You have Jacob from the Lashes, who plays guitar and sings, Laurie the bassist, does double time playing also for Heather Duby, and the aforementioned keyboardist is Shane, the singer of freshly broken-up the Divorce. Shane was actually just added to the band a week and a half prior to last night's show, and besides a few equipment malfunctions, pulled off the keys quite nicely.

The band in its entirety has only been together for around six months, but already they're pulling some great shows. Their first show was opening at the Chop Suey for Saturna in June, last night's show at the Crocodile, plus they played TIG sponsored YACHT rock [more sea references!] two weeks ago, covering Hall and Oates. If they've already pulled all these off in under half a year, I'm interested to see how far this band is going.

[ps. I also know about Seattle band the Sea Navy, but I wanted to keep the title cheeky with the vessel named bands. :D]