Local (West Yorkshire) excitement is building up around the enthusiastically post-rock VESSELS.
Their early audiences are coming back with tales of epic and hypnotic performances. The band is partly a rebuilt A DAY LEFT who were stirring up interest around Leeds a couple of years ago without quite getting the payoff.
This five track EP could, then, be a next step towards one of those glorious crescendos of musical success that the region has been hearing on all stylistic fronts in the last twelve months.
My first reaction is a bit curmudgeonly. I can hear great chunks of the post-rock heroes of the recent past. The sort of names that press forward are TORTOISE, MOGWAI, SIGUR ROS AND EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY. LIFT TO EXPERIENCE even. But in all the spirals of emotional rise and fall I don’t think I can detect as much of VESSELS as I would want to hear in first recordings of a band who clearly aim to be interesting and creative as well as commercially viable. These sounds were current in 2000 or earlier, and time is moving on.
As to the songs themselves, "The Beast" has a classic RADIOHEAD chord sequence with a circular kind of a riff. Then it swaps into something like another intro to a second song with some interesting drumming and then a distinctly TORTOISE bit that turns into a bit of MOGWAI. "Take It Outside" has a very SHELLAC via THAT FUCKING TANK start. It’s a nice repetition thing with some impressionistic vocals. It meanders a bit.
"Armed To The Teeth" sets off on its journey with the EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY guitar style and a keyboard part. It rises and falls with an agreeably SIGUR ROS vocal line added. It ends on a big MOGWAI freakout.
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"Set Fires" and "Look At That Cloud" continue the episodic feel of the first three tracks, adding their own good ideas and nice little touches as they go. At no point did my breath catch on a sudden surprise or shaft of sunlight. The sense of familiarity is very strong. Looking at a cloud is a good metaphor. The beauty is undeniable, the creation of such a thing is a deep mystery. But shape, direction, transcendence, a sense of purpose?… for me, not quite yet. A bit like the first EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY recordings in fact. Interesting, but not as distinctive as this well-developed field now demands of new entrants.
I can certainly imagine the dramatic effect of this music in a live context. The evidence of the recording is that Tim Mitchell (Drums), Martin Teff (Guitar, Bass and Synth),Tom Evans (Guitar, Vocals, and miscellaneous other instruments) and Lee J. Malcolm (Guitar, Vocals, Synth and Laptop) have huge potential as a band. With an obsessive and focussed single mind on the case the whole thing could explode in a very exciting way.
www.myspace.com/vesselsband
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