I Heart Hiroshima -- The Zoo
I Heart Hiroshima, Turnpike, Scul Hazzards, Frou Frou Foxes
The Zoo, Brisbane
September 1, 2007
Vague moanings about the creative process: This review of IHH is okay, but by no means brilliant (compared to Time Off's, which quite impressed me). I find it constantly frustrating to go to a gig and not be quite able to communicate it's utter (or utter lack of) brilliance.
Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to grasp smoke: I have a feeling I want to encapsulate but it sits out of reach, somehow undefinable. I can't find the proper words, and the ones I choose are not quite right.
Or I have a plethora of ideas, all of which compete against each other, none of which I can bring fully to fruition. So I end up with a hodgepodge -- which is kind of what this ended up being. I had the idle concept of playing the battle of the bands idea much more strongly and turning it into a lighthearted play on Australian Idol, but it was too hard and I ran out of time.
I want to get it exactly right; more often than not what comes out is merely a vague approximation. I miss details. Or forget them. Or I simply lack the musical vocabulary to describe what I hear: thus the nuances elude me. Or I worry about falling into the same patterns of phrases -- a very easy thing to do. It can be quite disheartening.
The flipside is recognising that not everything I write is going to be brilliance on a stick. That's simply the way of things. Maybe this is simply one of those times. But there aren't many reviews that I could call myself completely happy with. You know, this post is almost as long as the reivew, and took about 1/10th of the time to write. Gnnnh.
Tonight, the Zoo serves up a quartet of Brisbane’s best noise merchants in what could easily be billed as the battle of the shouty-screamy bands. It’s enough to warm the cockles of any fan of the angry, edgy and frantic edge of the musical spectrum.
Frou Frou Foxes open proceedings sporting a very fashionable twin-guitar-plus-drums set-up. It might appear the same as their better-known brethren I Heart Hiroshima, but that’s where the resemblance ends. The three-piece focus inward, projecting a dark and brooding sound that belies their bass-less nature and plays nicely with the (sadly) thin early-evening crowd. Half-heard lyrics scud like soap scum along streams of black guitar that whine and swirl. Be nice if they projected themselves a little more, though, instead of letting the music do all the work.
Scul Hazzards reinforce the three-piece theme, but opt for a more traditional guitar-bass-drums holy trinity to showcase their aural powers.
Continue reading "I Heart Hiroshima -- The Zoo".
The Zoo, Brisbane
September 1, 2007
Vague moanings about the creative process: This review of IHH is okay, but by no means brilliant (compared to Time Off's, which quite impressed me). I find it constantly frustrating to go to a gig and not be quite able to communicate it's utter (or utter lack of) brilliance.
Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to grasp smoke: I have a feeling I want to encapsulate but it sits out of reach, somehow undefinable. I can't find the proper words, and the ones I choose are not quite right.
Or I have a plethora of ideas, all of which compete against each other, none of which I can bring fully to fruition. So I end up with a hodgepodge -- which is kind of what this ended up being. I had the idle concept of playing the battle of the bands idea much more strongly and turning it into a lighthearted play on Australian Idol, but it was too hard and I ran out of time.
I want to get it exactly right; more often than not what comes out is merely a vague approximation. I miss details. Or forget them. Or I simply lack the musical vocabulary to describe what I hear: thus the nuances elude me. Or I worry about falling into the same patterns of phrases -- a very easy thing to do. It can be quite disheartening.
The flipside is recognising that not everything I write is going to be brilliance on a stick. That's simply the way of things. Maybe this is simply one of those times. But there aren't many reviews that I could call myself completely happy with. You know, this post is almost as long as the reivew, and took about 1/10th of the time to write. Gnnnh.
Tonight, the Zoo serves up a quartet of Brisbane’s best noise merchants in what could easily be billed as the battle of the shouty-screamy bands. It’s enough to warm the cockles of any fan of the angry, edgy and frantic edge of the musical spectrum.
Frou Frou Foxes open proceedings sporting a very fashionable twin-guitar-plus-drums set-up. It might appear the same as their better-known brethren I Heart Hiroshima, but that’s where the resemblance ends. The three-piece focus inward, projecting a dark and brooding sound that belies their bass-less nature and plays nicely with the (sadly) thin early-evening crowd. Half-heard lyrics scud like soap scum along streams of black guitar that whine and swirl. Be nice if they projected themselves a little more, though, instead of letting the music do all the work.
Scul Hazzards reinforce the three-piece theme, but opt for a more traditional guitar-bass-drums holy trinity to showcase their aural powers.
Continue reading "I Heart Hiroshima -- The Zoo".