Live Review | The Stills @ Sonar 2006.04.08

Live Review | Ponys @ Talking Head 2006.04.06

Live Review | Stellastarr* & Editors @ Sonar 2006.04.02

editors

stellastarr

Sharing the matte black cavern of Sonar’s club stage, tour mates Stellastarr and Editors represent two schools of new wave romantics. Stellastarr’s genre bending debut represented a shift towards flamboyant art rock from the Strokes disaffected lifestyle noise. Editors attempt to shift the sound back to the future, arriving half-way to Interpol’s melancholy robotic tensions and adding their own punked-out shoegazer elements. Hardly old hands, Stellastarr plan to give the young turks a run for their money, stepping aside from headliners to support mid-tour.

Further carving their own distinctive place among the lions of new rock with their second LP (Harmonies for the Haunted), Stellastarr defy categorization, breaking away from the critical scrutiny of their influences to. Frontman Shawn Christiansen rips and flails on stage to “On My Own”, his voice a Siamese David Byrne/ Richard Hell monster, hinging between choir and chaos. The down tempo rhythm is haunting long before his floor-crawling seizures. Propelling the eerie thump, drummer Arthur Kremer stands mid-way through and rips electrical tape x’s from his nipples, gritting his teeth. Bombshell Amanda Tannen steals the spotlight with meandering basslines and harmonic chirps behind Christiansen’s blare. The boy-girl dynamic works with Pixies-like effect on former single “My Coco”, marching the song until it stands erect on piercing guitar lines cutting through the air. A student of Johnny Greenwood University, guitarist Michael Jurin tweaks his way to sheering white noise, scalding “Love and Longing” before reducing it to a woozy dream, boosting Christiansen’s ascending vocals.
Stellastarr plays their fierce dance rock with all the enthusiasm of garage band teens, as eager to please a club of one hundred as they are the thousands they have possessed worldwide over the last three years. Fervent, sharp and reckless, the Brooklyn foils heighten the atmosphere and lay down the gauntlet to the upstarts Editors.

Editors’ singer/ guitarist Tom Smith shyly saunters on stage behind husky bassist Russell Leetch at half past eleven with the unenviable task of maintaining that momentum. Residing in Birmingham, England (the cradle of Black Sabbath), Editors have focused their dark arts more on the Thatcherism-era depression than the devil himself. However, the doomy debonair of their debut album washes away like a goth’s mascara when Smith nervously greets the crowd: “Thanks for stickin’ around.”

Smith squints, slowly regaining focus as his eyes gradually adjust to the spotlight. He giggles with guitarist Chris Urbanowicz, slinking through the strap of his Telecaster and nervously adjusting the mic stand. He closes his eyes, breathes deep and simultaneously strums and sings the opening to “Lights” briskly strumming to lifting guitar leads. Ed Lay’s cowbell plonk on “Blood” anchors Leetch’s pogo rhythm, as Smith and Urbanowicz alternately shimmer as shyness works off and Smith’s volatile side comes to bear. He shivers and shakes like a Parkinsonian Thom Yorke, stomping and banging his guitar as he strums the progression under a lead that cuts like police sirens through a calm night. When the song ends, Smith is so excited his polished accent turns to a giddy prattle - reflecting the enthusiasm of the crowd as the show progresses, in a town he’s never been to and possibly never thought of.

“Camera” glides in over synthesized chords played by Smith as he pours love lorn lyrics over top. The stark black stage fills with cigarette smoke as heart rates slow down, causing a surreal, nearly religious experience amid Urbanowicz’s bell chime guitar. They stay in the down-tempo briefly through “You Are Fading,” before the pounding of guitar, drums and bass all drive the song outward.
Debuting two newer songs, “Weight of the World” and “Bones”, Editors show sings of growth and polish, counterbalancing the stadium-sized punch with delicate introspection. Though the blistering singles (“Bullets”, “Munich”, “Blood”) and trampling set closer “Fingers in Factories” are worth the price of admission alone, the awe-inspiring promise Editors carry behind their passion will keep fans coming for years to come.

Both Stellastarr and Editors display the fundamental traits that make the “brand new wave” so compelling. While one band is the torch-bearers of the first wave and other is the sign of the times, they prove they are both more than just tightly-space dance beats, bottomless rhythms and sharp guitars. The delight and spirit behind the music Stellastarr and Editors produce make them artists among businessmen.












Editors

Live Review | South @ Sonar 2006.03.29

British music has always been fodder for the fickle beasts that are American consumers. While Coldplay are devoured as a sugary feast and Radiohead a literate delicacy, groups from Muse to Slade have dented charts and hearts across the pond and barely bounce off college listeners, never breaking the market. Londoners South, who have grown from teens to torch-bearers, may fall into that gap, but they could represent the last great band from the twitching corpse of Brit-Pop.

In three records, South turned their teenage attention deficits from trippy electronica beeps to lush melody-forged pop gems plucked from the clouds. As the group grows on record, live they are forced to tone down to a primitive, yet well-suited end. Taking hints from model reinventionists Wilco, South boils down the layered and complex into the basic with stunning results. While the ambition of their earlier electro-tinged work often distracted from the cute simplistic melodies and daydream hooks of the songwriting trio. That core, Joel Cadbury, Jamie McDonald and Brett Shaw, can and do switch instruments without any strain on the music or their abilities. With Cadbury on bass and singing, McDonald and Shaw duel for guitar leads away from the attention-stealing bass leading finer songs by the nose (“Safety in Numbers”, “Keep Close”).

The expressive deconstruction of “Paint the Silence”, complete with hypnotic keys-as-strings, washes up and rolls back onto the chorus. “Motiveless Crime” is all rhythmic pounding, vibrating the monitors to the stage edge amid more synthetic sweeps and Cadbury’s psychedelic hush. Despite the calming effect, members of their touring party, including Margot and the Nuclear So and So and Something For Rockets dance around the audience like chocolate-stained children in an amusement park. The mania lets Cadbury chuckle briefly mid-song, as he reels back in his focus, biting his lower lip between verses. His face then fatigues, straining to get back into character as the words errupt from him.

“Shallow” exhibits their new melodic purpose defining the album it opens (Adventures in the Underground Journey to the Stars was released domestically April 4). The turn towards pop substance over the often cluttering electronics defines South as a live entity. Achieving such rapturous, blissful atmospherics, South is earning a reputation as equals to post-Brit Pop elder statesmen Doves and Elbow, and not simply their squeaky-voice younger siblings.

Blindly listing “cover song” on their set list, Cadbury and company breeze over the bristle of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”, the wunderkinds bisect the song for it’s pop sway early and then into club-moving slice of their roots.

The tragedy of South stumbles into the commercial void of car commercials and O.C. soundtracks would be enormous - few bands have created such a testament to their own diverse music growth and maturation towards brilliance.

Something For Rockets