Coastal (Words On Music, 2001) takes shoegazing psychedelia and tunes it to a more humane kind of songwriting. Jason Gough's guitar creates delicate filigrees that Josh Callaway's bass and Jim Harker's drums barely caress, while Luisa Gough's keyboards lay down a shroud of enchanted drones. The effect recalls Idaho, Slowdive, Yo La Tengo, Red House Painters or, further back in time, Hugo Largo, all the bands that whispered deeply felt emotions. Everything is subdued, but the melodies are actually quite engaging.
The languid, nostalgic theme of Northern projects a sense of ecstatic trance, an ecstasy that seems to ascend to the heavens in Paris Radio, impalpable dust of nursery rhymes. Cinder is even sweeter, a celestial duet that soars through the instruments' shimmering tones. On the other hand, Her Reflection In Chrome is somber to the limit of Nick Drake's manic depression, redeemed by Gough's ethereal contralto. The intensely harmonious Ivy sounds like a religious hymn played at half speed. Celesta has the "breathing" flavor of late Pink Floyd, another duet awash in crystal tones. Gough's organ is inconspicous but pivotal: it brushes the canvas rather than drawing shapes but ultimately gives each song its echological niche, where it can grow and metabolize.
Needless to say, eight of these lengthy trancey songs are not easy to digest (unless you are in either the most serene or gloomiest of moods) and certainly the quartet could use a more varied instrumentation to add spices to their rather plain dishes, if nothing else to dispel the notion that their music is merely an act of self-flagellation. But the result is already impressive, a mature statement that improves on one of the most poetic genres of popular music.

The debut was followed by the equally skeletal dream-pop of Winter (Dream By Degrees, 2002), a mini-album.

Embellished with cello, viola, keyboards and bells Halfway To You (Words On Music, 2004) enhances the chromatic aspect of their slo-core ballads. The music of Until You Sleep and Drift is a state of mind in search for hypnosis, gently drifting on a monotone instrumental tide. Halfway To You and We Won't Last Another Year highlight the fusion of romantic and metaphysical motives that permeates their music. It's a concept that can achieve something akin to pure ecstasis: Luisa Gough's otherwordly vocals paralyze Eternal the way Enya does with her timeless lullabies, while Jason Gough pens the nirvana of Leaves, for whispered extended syllables and guitar tones, a simple touching psalm to life. No matter how abstract the structure gets, Coastal keeps thing inherently melodic: melody is the pillar of their compositions, despite the way it is bent and warped. Surprisingly, the longest song, the eight-minute So Close, is also the most conventional; but its five-minute instrumental coda builds up to an almost orchestral crescendo, with a languid cello-driven finale.
Coastal's hymnody is occasionally reminiscent of the most ethereal acid-rock bands of the 1960s (It's A Beautiful Day, One); and, at its emotional peak, it may sound like a layman's version of Popol Vuh's liturgical music.
Coastal's soundtrack to life is a unique blend of musical references to both human calvary and universal harmony.

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