Paranova @ Joseph's Well
By Braden Russom
I regret to say that last night's show at Joseph's Well was possibly the most unsatisfying one I have seen so far. None of the bands made much of a musical impression on me, and two out of the three vocalists had more pretensions than Liam Gallagher at a Beatles festival.
The first band of the night was my favourite. Not so much because they were more talented than the others, but because they played their music like it was meant to be played; honestly. The Breech were definitely an inexperienced band, but their feel for the music was truer than the other two combined. Although they were fairly disorganised, they were good to listen to. The vocal harmonies were good, and most of the songs had at least one little surprise sneaked into them. The slide parts on "Dear George" were melodic, the trombone was a little overused but cool, the fuzzed out intro to "Get Down" was good, and the acoustic guitar texture was a nice switch. Overall they were kind of bland, but they knew where to put the bits of spice that they had.
The second band was Yellow Stripe Nine, who initially seemed to be pretty decent. Their songs were well written, but their onstage histrionics left me a little sour. "Into the Sun" began beautifully, but descended into a sort of anti-melody power ballad. Their cover of The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" was thoroughly unconvincing. It lacked everything that made the original good; the jangly guitars, the paranoia, and those high, primitive yelping sounds that David Byrne used so well. I have to give them credit for trying such a difficult song though. Good effort, poor execution.
Paranova had a tight, powerful rhythm section that was excellent as long as they didn't have to switch volumes. They began with an instrumental of sorts that had some good parts, but ultimately lacked direction and seemed to end when the members got sick of playing it. Then they brought their vocalist on stage and everything went downhill from there. He certainly had a rock star attitude, but hadn't the vocal talent to back it up. His on stage persona was stolen directly and completely from Liam Gallagher. He had the hair, the singing style, and the air of self-importance that makes you want to leave the show. Which, coincidentally, is what I did. Their first three or four songs sounded so much alike that I couldn't possibly see anything different coming. Very disappointing.
