London, The Electric Ballroom 09/12/09
Glass Rock are a unity between two bands, Tall Firs & Soft Location. Hailing from Brooklyn they have just released their first collaborative album imaginatively called “Tall Firs meet Soft Location” on Ecstatic Peace Records.
Tonight they play in London at The Electric Ballroom supporting Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (of Pavement fame). The decision is made for both myself and other Lights Go Out writer Wills to the show to check them out and see if they’re as good as some of the press we’ve seen, by this I mean the fact that the NME gave Tall Firs some glowing words. So why not!
We arrive at the venue with literally seconds to spare as the band take the stage. A five piece comprising of two members of Soft Location (Matt on bass & Kathy on an acoustic guitar and vocals) and three members from Tall Firs (Dave & Aaron on guitars and Ryan on drums – who I will come back to later). The stage set up almost seems to pitch each band on their respective side with Ryan providing a link between the two, especially as Dave & Aaron face more inwards towards the others. During the set we realise that all of them are very talented musicians and they work well together in the entity that is Glass Rock. So onto the music of Glass Rock…
Not really knowing what to expect, Glass Rock play a real mix of indie meets country meets lo-fi and more. The songs don’t hang around too long for them to get boring, the arrangements have enough to keep you interested as well. The vocals from Tall Firs members have a real Pavement/Malkmus twang sound to them, which I am sure the audience here will appreciate. But Soft Location’s Kathy does the majority of the vocals and for me this is the better option. The voice is one of those haunting and sweet female vocals that you just cannot fail to enjoy. Wills likened them right away to a Patti Smith influence, but I feel there is much more with the Glass Rock sound. Now I admit this is not normally what I would listen too, but they really hooked me in and their 45 minute set seemed to just fly by and before I knew it they were walking off stage. They did mumble a bit too much on stage and made it hard to hear what they were talking about, maybe a little more confidence is needed, which is a shame as the songs really sound great but a little interaction with the crowd would not have gone amiss for me.
The comments from Wills were that Glass Rock are definitely a band that would have benefited from a venue before the smoking ban came into play. The songs are melodic yet slow. But with enough hooks and melody to keep you listening and wanting more. I couldn’t see myself sticking Glass Rock on to really listen to, but as far as putting them on the stereo to chill out to as some background music, maybe on a Summer’s day, one lazy Sunday afternoon then this is just perfect. It’s laid back, chill out in it’s finest pure form.
Now I mentioned that I would come back to the drummer, Ryan. I have to admit that this man has one of the best beards I have had the pleasure of seeing. Yeah he could play the drums really well, switching between sticks and beaters but come on there is no way I could have finished this review without talking about the awesome facial growth this dude has!
Glass Rock are an exciting project, chilled, mellow and make smooth sounds that your ear drums can really relate to.
Mr. T
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.Comments are closed.
© Lights Go Out – A punk fanzine from the UK. All rights reserved. RSS Feed | Best viewed in Mozilla Firefox
site by ledbyexample | admin