Gazpacho are a band from Norway, who have recently just
come back from a supporting tour with old 80's prog rockers
"Marillion", they are unsigned and have released
"When Earth Lets Go" themselves. Some of you
out there may have instantly switched off your brains,
and started to look elsewhere on this site, well listen
up fuckwits, this is some album i can tell you. In a Music
Industry thats up to its neck in shit, uninventive, corporate,
crap, with the NME kissin the arse of the latest"franz
ferdinand/strokes", clone band, Gazpacho are a breath
of fresh air with this surprisingly original, inventive
record.
Its hard to categorise "Gazpacho", but take
a pinch of radiohead, mix with Kate Bush, add 2 tablespoons
of Sigur Ros, and....oh fuck it, they don't really sound
like anybody but themselves, put it this way if there
was a genre for Alternative Lounge Prog Rock, this would
be in it.
"When Earth Lets Go" starts with a wound up
scratchy gramophone playing some marching band music,
which leads into "Snowman" an eerie opening
track, with delightful ice cold tinkling piano, and a
very "Kate Bush" like melody in the chorus.
This moves on to "Put it on the air", for me
a particular stand out track, a complicated song with
many twists and turns which stands up to many repeated
listens. "Steal Yourself" rocks out on the chorus,
to give some light relief, from the more dark and gloomier
tracks like "souvenir" and "117",
the whole album is well thought out with the placement/order
of the tracks, another standout track is "Substitute
for murder" which is a great way of checking out
if "Gazpacho" is your bag or not (see below).
Make no mistake, "Gazpacho" are an acquired
taste, Jan H's vocals may not be to everyones liking,
and there style of production may seem overly dramatic
to others, but if you can't appreciate this music then
you have no soul. "Gazpacho" also seem to drape
there music and lyrics in mystery, which gets you looking
up the lyrics in the CD booklet and trying to work out
if its all nonsense or has some deeper, serious meaning,
which allways floats my boat anyway.
The quality of songwriting is really the most important
aspect for the success or failure of a band, and Gazpacho
have this pretty much sussed, and in turn make a lot of
recently signed bands look 2nd rate. Check out the "weed"
file (windows media audio) below to get an idea of "Gazpacho".
Father Ted
> play
"Substitute for murder" (WMA) weed file
What's
a weed file, and how does it work?
