Good to Sea
Pinback formed in San Diego in 1998 when Rob Crow and Armistead Burwell Smith IV started writing songs together. They named the band after a minor character in the 1974 film Dark Star, played by Dan O’Bannon, and built early tracks around dialogue samples lifted straight from the movie.
By 2007, the band had added drummer Chris Prescott and signed to the Chicago label Touch and Go Records. The band’s fourth album Autumn of the Seraphs came out on September 11, 2007, and reached No. 69 on the Billboard 200. It was the band’s highest chart finish yet. Their previous album, Summer in Abaddon, had peaked at No. 196. Drummer Mario Rubalcaba sat in on several tracks alongside Prescott, and Mark Trombino mixed the record.
“Early highlights ‘Barnes’ and ‘Good to Sea’ twist a recipe of individual ingredients…into an excellent dish.”
“Good to Sea” sits at track three on Autumn of the Seraphs, written by Rob Crow and Armistead Burwell Smith IV, the two members who have anchored Pinback since 1998. AllMusic critic John Bush singled it out alongside “Barnes” as one of the album’s early highlights, praising the song’s interlocking vocal harmonies and basslines. The album’s first pressing also shipped with a bonus disc carrying three previously unreleased songs.
The album earned a 7.8 out of 10 from Pitchfork and a B+ from Stylus Magazine, two of the most closely watched indie outlets at the time. Pinback appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation on October 8, 2007, soon after the album came out. Nearly two decades later, “Good to Sea” still ranks among Pinback’s ten most-played tracks on Last.fm, a sign of how well it has held up with listeners.