Mount Fabric

Secretly an Astronaut EP

Hairy Wolf Records

Release Date: 24th March

Rating: 4/5

As this EP, the first thing I've heard by Hairy Wolves signing Mount Fabric, kicked off, I couldn't help but think of John Murphy's 'In the House/In a Heartbeat' from the film 28 Days Later.... that's not a bad thing at all, just kind of random. Anyway, the track  ('Coping With Belief') quickly resolves into something pretty solidly on the oddball side of post-rock-pop, with falsetto vocals set against a gentle paced rhythm section. By the time the vocals distort and the track climaxes, I've already decided that I like this band. 

Track two, 'Big Plans', ups the tempo somewhat; it reminds especially of Hoggboy, at least when they weren't being post- britpop crap and being post-grunge awesome instead. Other touchstones might be pre-Showbiz Muse or (if I'm to further plumb the name-dropping of cult unsigned bands) Fin Raziel; in fact, now I think about it, they even sound a little like a more poppy Connectingflight. Shit me, I'm on obscure reference overdrive. Quickly, stop me before I reach critical critic density and meltdown.... dammit, this is why I shouldn't have three cups of tea and then be let loose on my keyboard. What was I saying? Oh yeah, that it's good. Really good, actually, and there's something in the mix that I haven't quite nailed yet. Down on the Upside Soundgarden? Fuck. Blur? Maybe.

Right, so the final track is Blur-esque, my scatty day nonwithstanding; it's got that same playful approach to melody and appropriation of the post-Pavement US indie scene, even if the vocals have now gone fully from Jonsi to Stuart Warwick. Actually, you know, I will stand by that; I was going to make a lazy comparison to Yorke/Bellamy, but yeah, STUART WARWICK is the voice I was thinking of. 

All in all, it's a highly listenable, pleasantly left-of-centre EP that shows a band trying their best not to get pigeonholed, and succeeding to a great degree. Though vocally impressive, I was never totally wowed by the instrumentals, though it should be said that there's a strong approach to melody and pacing, and the production values throughout are simply exceptional. 
 

JAMES! JAMES! THAT is the band I was thinking of. Fuck, sorry, this review has been all over the place, even by my standards. Yeah, kind of like a less-britpop-more-post-rock version of James with a better singer and a little less inclined towards facile 'singles' style music. Just look it up for yourself, ok?

I think this is genuinely the longest review I've ever done for a three track EP. That HAS to be a compliment. "Lap it up, fuzzball", as Han Solo would say. 

Vessels

with Stuart Warwick and Plank!
Deaf Institute, Manchester

14th November 2010
Rating: 4/5

Apparently I missed the first band on. My bad, really. Worse than that, I actually got chatting to them by accident at some point, and have since forgotten their band name and failed to look them up. I suck.

Right, so apologies out of the way, let's talk Plank! As luck would have it, they are actually about as essential as the exclamation mark that concludes their bandname; from an unconvincing start, their songs became gradually more and more interesting, until with a righteous guitar solo in their penultimate number, they'd completely won me over. They are great, and if you're into that kind of looping, math-meets-prog thing, they are definitely the band you've been waiting for. They even did a kind of stadium rock flourish in their last song that was distinctly Who-like. Excellent!

Now, when you go to a lot of gigs, you're eventually exposed to a little of pretty much every genre out there, and you quickly become very hard to be surprised by anything. The most pleasant surprises of all are when sheer musicianship wins through and somebody merely doing what they do incredibly well becomes the greatest virtue, ahead of originality, stagecraft or whatever.

That's not to say that Stuart Warwick doesn't have an original sound- he has, but at the same time it's definitely from that same bizarro-world of popular music from which Imogen Heap and Charlie Barnes have descended. Simply, it's one man and a piano (or, for one song, two men and one guitar) playing post-rock-pop, with a lot of loops. Stuart's voice is definitely of the Buckley school, and it's very compelling, to say the least. The songs themselves are occasionally bitter, occasionally sweet, and rather more often, bittersweet.

The crowd is finally won over when Stuart abandons an out of sync loop and cashiers a track, saying “I guess this is God's way of telling me I shouldn't play that song”. I think I speak for everyone present when I say we were sad to see him leave. If you're reading this, open up another tab and go and find him on teh internets. It's not hard (I managed to) and you will be rewarded.

Finally it was Vessels' time in the spotlight. I've actually had the good luck to see this band a surprisingly large number of times, both at festivals and in support slots, sober or too-drunk-to-remember, and everything in between. The thing I can't help thinking tonight as I sit in the strange theatre seat section of Deaf is how much better this band get every time I see them. My first impression, way back when, was of a band rather too mathy for my tastes, but today they are on fine form, sprawling and dramatic.

I'm not going to go into the nature metaphors; it's post-rock done well, and you should know what that sounds like (hint: Hammock or 65daysofstatic). Most encouragingly of all, the tracks I don't recognise (the newer ones) are much stronger than the ones I do, suggesting that their impending album is going to be a corker. Stuart obligingly hops back up to the stage to sing recent single, 'Meatman, Piano Tuner, Prostitute', and again reminds me of that little itch I felt when first hearing it and wishing that this collaboration would become more permanent. Oh well.

That dispensed with and the audience satisfied, Vessels cracked out a hammer-of-the-gods finish and then made their exit, but not before thanking the crowd for actually being arsed to come down. Nice.