Their fans must have all been somewhere else that night, because when they climbed on stage at The Echo (photo above) for their EP release party on Friday, April 2, 2010, the place was packed and a sizable roar greeted them as they began. And just like before, they were even better than I remembered.
Just as Carnivoras is more focused and more forceful than their previous release, New Blood, New Sight, so is their live show. Torches in Trees has impressed me with their professionalism, which belies their youth, but this night they just blew the roof off the place. Their hazy, gauzy psychedelia has been augmented with some really muscular playing that adds significant drama to the songs.
Allow me to backtrack. I arrived around 10PM as Tremellow were mid-set and I went inside, and not recognizing any familiar faces, I rested against a pole and just enjoyed the band. Tremellow work a similar territory to Torches In Trees, but with an ear for the unusual melody and interesting sound effects. They played hard and the audience lapped it up.
As Sweater Girls were performing a nice set of their girl harmony, Brit-pop, (I very much enjoyed their smart, skillful singing ) I wandered over to the bar to get a drink, figuring that at least when Torches In Trees went on I'd know somebody there. Next thing I know I'm surrounded by band members from Seasons celebrating lead singer Nic's birthday. I had not known they are good friends with the Torches people, though I might have guessed based on the quality of each band, but I would have been thrown off again, because they don't sound anything alike.
Sounding bigger and more assured that I ever heard before, Torches In Trees led off with some new material from Carninivora that just soared, as they threw themselves into the set with abandon and passion. (see abandon and passion at right) Adding in older songs from their first album, there's such quality consistency in their writing that they blended seamlessly. I understand this was their Echo debut and they filled the venue with beautiful music and a huge crowd of fans. They had a perfect sound mix that gave the guitars and dueling male/female vocals just the right echoey ambiance that gives their music so much added dimension.
This band's popularity seems to be growing fast and with good reason. This was one of the most self-assured and cohesive sets I've seen by any band this year and I predict that they'll be playing bigger and bigger venues for more and more fans in no time. It's like watching a beautiful tree grow right before your eyes. By the way, Carnivora is wonderful and shows even greater range and depth than their first record, art below.
On Monday, April 5, Walking Sleep began their residency at The Echo with another one of my favorite local bands, The Stevenson Ranch Davidians, who I saw for the first time at the EP release show for Escapements by that band called The Flying Tourbillon Orchestra back on July 3, 2008. They instantly jumped onto my "must see again...NOW!" list and I followed them around for awhile until they went on hiatus. Reappearing this year with a new CD, Life and Death, they launched it with a show at Spaceland on January 7, 2010, and I was an eager fan, happy to see them on stage again. It was a good show, but I felt a slight discrepancy in the performance of the new material versus their old standards.
Now that some months have passed The Stevenson Ranch Davidians (seen at The Viper Room at left) have removed that disparity, and the songs just flow out of them like water running downstream. They began with the high, plaintive "Do You Feel Free?" that keeps you hanging on tender hooks as it doesn't relieve it's insistency until the end when it just comes to a jangling dead stop. That song is a model of how to sustain tension, musically. So beautifully executed that when the next song began, "Getting By" which introduced the familiar shambling, jangling guitars that is the hallmark of their sound, it relaxed the tension set forth in the previous number.
Unfortunately sound problems plagued the band for the next couple of number, threatening to do in their set. The electric guitar needed tuning and then Dwayne's guitar went out and the song just trailed off. Their recovery was as remarkable as their professional aplomb when faced with possible disaster, and they were back on track within minutes.
When they play, I am helpless to resist, as their sound just washes over me. I was glad they included so many songs from Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs as it made me realize that the new material is so good you can't tell the difference anymore. Dwayne Seagraves writes such confident and solid psychedelic/folk songs, they sound like they've been part of my musical conscience forever. Instant classics you could call them. If they had been around in the sixties, they would have been one of my favorite bands then, too.
What can I say about Walking Sleep (above) except that I probably know them as well as I know any band in L.A. and they have been supportive, appreciative, and above all, some of the most long lasting friends I've made in the whole music scene. They're practically family, so forgive the prejudice in the following comments.
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