Kirstiecat | Blog

I tell ya, Canada does it better. And I’m not praising these bands because they simply are Canadian, either. (Geez, people, need I remind everyone I hate Rush) but I will admit that I always enjoy hearing their Canadian accents that I adore. And also, Canadian bands are always nicer and more polite. Like, you want to get to know them as people because you know they are probably great people who have so much to offer the world. Okay okay…gotta focus:

SIANspheric: definitely fitting of the shoegazing title with less prominent vocals for many of the songs and very intense and full sounds filling the room from the two guitars and bass. You could hear the lead singer’s voice sort of hovering above that and a couple of times, they started out songs in a way reminiscent of Slowdive and then build to a really intense and powerful finish in a more of a MBV Loveless sort of way. It was nice to listen to the two guitar melody lines interact in some of the more melancholy subdued bits as well. We did pick up that split ep with Toshack Highway and the dvd collection at the show-have to still listen to it, though.

A Northern Chorus was just so amazing, really. What was really unique about their sound was that the two male lead singers (Stuart Livingstone and Pete Hall if you go by their webpage) were really in synch and complimenting eachother perfectly. You didn’t get the sense that one was backing up the other like you do more often. And often, they were joined by the perfect soprano vocals of the female lead singer (I think it’s Alex McMaster) who also provided some full and rich cello sounds. Three different voices at once was just amazing to hear dynamically because you had more of a bass heavy voice layered on top with an alto then with a female soprano…nice! The other rather unique thing about them was that one of the guitarists played his guitar with a cello bow as well which created a really nice sort of lush symphony. It seems the celloist was just recently added to the band and so I am guessing is only featured on their most recent album, Bitter Hands Resign. You can hear the beauty of it if you go here: http://www.sonicunyon.com/anc/index2.html

(now playing: Femmes de Paris vol 2)

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 at 4:00 pm and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.