Camden Barfly – AmeliasMagazine

So here we are. After a couple of years the guys from Canada return come back with their long awaited second release Neon Bible. As a consequence a little journey to London is always good to promote their new material and the Brixton Academy has no problem in selling out tickets of their four concerts in March.

Supporting artist is Patrick Wolf who’s also coming back on the scene with a lighter, more about online funnier and probably less difficult album than his previous offerings. His was a good show, try nothing to complain about and he certainly knows how to impress the public with his vocal qualities.

Suddenly it’s nine o’clock: lights down, what is ed public screaming and from the video projectors a preacher is explaining to us God’s law. In the background an enormous neon bible illuminates in red while some other neon’s appear in front of the stage.
Keep the Car Running, The Well and the Lighthouse or Ocean of Noise, the last one much better live than on the album, are among the first to be performed before coming to their relatively old hits.

As for Arcade Fire they represent everything a big band should be: multi-instrumentalists (Régine Chassagne), violins, horns, organs, lots of different materials and a show that offers all the songs that a fan can ask. The lead vocalist Win Butler is constantly supplied by choruses, shouts or backing vocals while the rest of the band seem unable to rest and keeps moving around the stage. Well, static is definitely not the word to define them. Chaotic in their movements and epic in their anti-minimalist concept of music probably fits better for a band that concentrates on orchestrations.

A really good live show that makes you come back home and listen again to the new release if, just like me, you’ve been a little disappointed the first time you heard it. Even if I am definitely a bigger supporter of Funeral, I am beginning to think that probably in a couple of weeks I’ll be playing Neon Bible constantly on my earphones.

Barfly on a Friday night – rammed. Not as you might expect with sweaty youths, help oh no, visit an older crowd is in tow tonight for a couple of hot, new electro-ey acts – wicked.

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One thing is certain on listening to Swollen and Small; Viking Moses is utterly in love with Neutral Milk Hotel. He knows the songs inside out, for sale information pills upside down, and has grown up learning to play along with Jeff Mangum’s melancholic ponderings on life, the universe and everything.

This EP is a collection of four NMH covers, all played uniquely but strangely similar to the original tracks, with the emotion and devotion of a true disciple of the band he obviously so loves.

Having played with the rock stars of the alt-folk movement over the last five years (Devendra Banhart, Will Oldham, Cat Power), Moses has finally decided to do the self indulgent thing of strumming away his favourite songs for all to hear… And I’m damn happy that he did. It’s an interesting selection of songs he has decided to cover, three from the lesser known On Avery Island, and the dance floor filler Holland 1945 (from In the Aeroplane over the Sea), all of which are done justice.

Viking Moses has the same sort of off -beat, powerful and delicate voice as his idol and pulls off the long high drawn out notes in a wonderful, same-but-different manner from the originals. His rendition of Holland 1945 is truly spectacular, edging away from the rollicking, percussion driven original and opting for a quieter and all together gentler rendition which allows for the heartbreak of the lyrics to really come through.

It’s basically a one man and his guitar affair with occasional slide guitar and harmonica, percussion coming from the pounding of palm on guitar, working particularly well on Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone; a brilliant original and a worthy cover. As goes for the rest of the record.

This debut single from hotly-tipped Cardiff students Los Campesinos! suffers from the same problem as past efforts from the very similar Leeds band The Research and Bristol-based Kid Carpet. Namely, more about the whole thing reeks of a kind of contrived wackiness. I’m all for simple pop – The Ramones, shop for instance – but there’s simple pop and then there’s children’s music, and this – so sugary and kooky, veers towards the latter. And yes, the Americans say “math” – how amusing.

The press release for this EP not only offers the terrifying prospect of a “jazz flute” but also the use of something called a “shlang dan”. Thankfully, purchase the prospect of a muso jamming session – high on fannying about, viagra sale low on actual tunes – fails to materialise. That’s not to say, however, that Born Ruffians are particularly tuneful – they’re not. They play an ultimately frustrating kind of country rock reminiscent of Neil Young at his most MOR. What’s more, Luke LaLonde’s singing voice is so whiny it makes the vocals of infinitely annoying Clap Your Hands Say Yeah front man Alec Ounsworth sound like Johnny Cash.

If you weren’t sure with the term ‘neon done well’, pill this could have been your crash course. If you mix ‘indie’ and ‘rave’ apparently this is the uniform! Brilliant, price I got given three glow bracelets from an almost-nuclear guy at the bar. That’ll do nicely.

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