Thursday, May 12, 2005
Transcargo, Parkers Place Covent Garden
I usually don’t write bad reviews of unsigned bands, because I’ve been there and it’s hard enough trying to get people out to see you without giving them an excuse.
Tonight however, we saw a band of such utter mediocrity I felt the need to come straight home and vent my spleen. After listening to tracks on the Transcargo website I was quite looking forward to seeing a band sounding something like Zero 7 (OK) and Broadcast (bloody brilliant – we need more bands like Broadcast AFAIC). What we got was a bad Cardigans (Christ, the cardigans can’t make any money out of being The Cardigans and they’re good at it). The whole dynamic of the band revolves around singer Emily Phillips, it’s basically her and 6 bookish looking indie blokes. But she just doesn’t cut it – and her dancing like a drunk Shaking Stevens is of putting to say the least.
I’ll leave you with this thought – If you’re going to have a horn section in a band they’ve got to be fucking tight – sloppy hors are a crime. I’ve seen bands with great horn sections, Belle And Sebastian, despite being a shambles live, know how to use horns; JTQ and Brand New Heavies both know about how to use a horn section to lift a band. But if you’ve got 6 or 7 musicians on stage then the songs need to have room for all of the sounds otherwise they just become a dirge (like tonight’s opener, which starts of quietly and builds into a bigger dirge for each of the achingly long 5 minutes it takes to complete).
It’s not all bad – closer Copenhagen is good. It sounds like the Cardigans crica Life because not everyone in the band is trying to play louder than the rest.
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