Tonight to Cyprus Avenue and 2 bands I have never heard before – THE WIRE DAISIES from Cornwall and THE MONO BAND, a side project of the Cranberries’ guitarist Noel Hogan. Wire Daisies are touring to promote a new album and on their nice poster to publicise it I notice that Bob Harris amongst others is one of their champions.
Hmm… I kind of like whisperin’ Bob – he is a music fan for sure but, let’s never forget that he also dissed The New York Dolls in their prime on The Old Grey Whistle Test in the mid 70’s and I find it hard to forgive him for that. Remember, this was a time when the singer/songwriter and Prog-rock was all-conquering and any sign of pop-life should’ve been welcomed with open arms. Harris’ preference has always been for ‘Proper’ music in short and my initial fear is that the Wire Daisies would be purveyors of ‘Proper’ music – agreeable but bland.
And in general my fears were justified. They gel well together as a band and can play alright but too many songs just blend into a monotonous sub-Smiths jingle-jangle wall of sound that fails to excite interest in me, but the meager audience that has turned up seems to enjoy it very much. Sometimes though a few of the bands’ songs do have a bit more melodic variation composition-wise, mixing soft and hard passages well. On numbers like TRUTH THAT HURTS and BUTTERFLY lead singer Treana Morris packs a heavy punch – a strong vocalist who can do the Janis Joplin thing and mellow it down too, the band focus their sound around her voice to good effect. I personally would like to see a hear a bit more adventurousness in their approach but in all likelihood The Wire Daisies will find a large audience that enjoy their music smooth and easy to digest.
On to the Mono Band and some technical problems kill Noel Hogan’s guitar but the opening song still sounds ok to me – a factor that I will come back to later. The first thing that becomes apparent about the band is that they possess an excellent singer in the mold of Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke but more vulnerable (I couldn’t discover his name as TMB have a few male lead singers according to their website – he sounded English). Among the songs that stood out for me were SLEEP SONG, HOLLOW MAN and SHAKE LIKE A LEAF. The problem however is that the musical backing on many of these songs was heavy handed and unsubtle – the lead singer’s voice should have been the star of the show and too often the electronic fills and guitar effects irritate rather than delight.
|
Again like The Wire Daisies the musicianship is good but the overall sound is just too full – some aural space for the singer to weave his spell would work much better I feel and 2 guitars spells overkill. And things get worse with the introduction of a female singer, who sings fine, nothing wrong with her at all, but the band changes style completely to accommodate her voice and end up sounding well, not unlike The Cranberries. One has to ask the question - Why? This change shows some schizophrenic uncertainty on behalf of the band and it’s a shame because The Mono Band have a fairly good thing going on and with a bit more effort could achieve higher results – the influence of Antony and the Johnson’s latest album and The Beta Band’s EP’s might go down a treat.
So, as we are starting a new school term, some study suggestions – The Wire Daisies - should put the head down and work on introducing more interesting rhythms and textures to their sonic stew to add a bit more variation. And The Mono Band? They need to display a bit more confidence in class and also need to create a more individual and concrete overall sound. Neither are bottom of the class but both could do better for sure.
|
