SONICFLYER have a lot to live up tonight. I've heard their single (Sun in my Pocket) and a couple of other tracks knocking about the ether - and the forecast ain't too promising: mediocre, flat, formulaic and - worst of all - a little boring.
Yet the NME apparently like them [does that mean anything anymore?] and they're ridden the myspace hype machine with an impressive backstory that actually might be more interesting than their music: Yulia and Dima - siblings in far Siberia - develop a love of music through the BBC and come to England to pursue their dreams...it's certainly an intriguing proposition. A shame, then, that my expectations aren't particularly high.
I do, however, hold a deep-rooted belief that most bands tend to excel either on record or as a live unit; few manage to be both....and, praise the heavens, the theory bears up as soon as they take the stage for the first song. Sonicflyer are simply better - much, much better - in front of an audience than they appear to be on record. Any pretensions of the "epic" indie pop sound that appears to have been drip-fed into the arteries of their record gets swiftly detoxed by a sound that owes more to the awesome soundscapes that Ride used to be able to come up with before they got all grown up and started liking Neil Young a bit too much.
They're a neat unit - tight and organised without sounding too polished. Yulia doesn't appear to have embraced the confidence that the role of front-woman demands quite yet - although the promo shots seem to have cast her in that light, she's a touch shy to begin with and turns to the presence of her band-mates to fill in the gaps. Shuffling about the stage behind the safety of a pixie-feather cut and tomboyish shirt and jeans, she casts glances to brother Dima - they are disarmingly similar in a Rufus/Martha Wainwright way - for reassurance. Sideman and co-vocalist Chris takes much of the attention off her - the two find a happy balance in the swirls of guitars and each feeds from the energies of the other as the songs pile up behind them.
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What's clear is that the songs they play simply don't breathe on record like they do here. Even Sun in my Pocket is transformed into a layered and grinding piece of dreamy indie-pop that fills the room, floats up the stairs and, no doubt, knocks down the punters having a sneaky fag outside. They don't know what they're missing downstairs.
The crowd respond in kind too - this may be an early support slot to East London's Havana Guns but there's none of the disinterest that would usually befall such a situation: it's almost chatter-free over at the bar and almost every face in the room bears a smile. Heads nod, feet tap, applause and cheers punctuate the songs: it's all good.
So then, the blame for my expectations being so distressingly dragged down must go to that cowboy record producer and his lack of vision; he who so cruelly made me think bad of these innocent, talented artists. I'd go see them play live again in a heartbeat - but someone at the record company deserves a beating.
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