Music
’THE FUNERAL GRACED EVERY FILM IT COULD GET ITS ANTHEMIC HOOKS INTO’ Hitlist THE BEST ROCK, POP, JAZZ & FOLK*
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✽✽ Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti Ariel Rosenburg’s (above) new album Before Today got a 5-star review last issue. Here’s a chance to see the oddball pop/rock magpie live. Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Sun 13 Jun. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Rock Ness See feature, page 30. Loch Ness, Dores, Fri 11–Sun 13 Jun. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Casiokids, James Yuill, Cocknbullkid, Silver Columns and Malcolm Middleton Artists from the Moshi Moshi roster gather to praise at the altar of Madonna, with this special night of pop reinterpretations. See preview, page 69. 02 ABC, Glasgow, Thu 17 Jun. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Leith Records: Batter of the Bands ‘It’s a chippy- inspired musical showdown.’ See feature, page 18. Studio 128, Edinburgh, Thu 17 Jun. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Snow Patrol with Band of Horses, Frightened Rabbit and Editors See preview, left. Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, Sat 12 Jun. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ West End Festival Glasgow’s local summer party that thinks it’s a fiesta, with five live music stages featuring the likes of Ian McCulloch, King Creosote, Mr Kil, Three Blind Wolves and many more, plus a DJ stage and the famous Mardi Gras parade. Various venues, Glasgow, Mon 7–Sun 27 Jun. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Glasgow Jazz Festival See previews, page 70. Various venues, Glasgow, Fri 18–Sun 27 Jun. (Jazz) ✽✽ Astral Planes The surf-pop-rockers formerly known as Paper Planes play a clutch of gigs at Rock Ness and the West End Festival around the release of their new EP, ‘Sit Still Child’. EP release Brel, Glasgow, Fri 18 Jun. (Rock & Pop)
Back in the saddle Get your lighters out. Band of Horses are bringing their country-tinged rock to Bellahouston Park. Ryan Drever traces the path that brought them here
U pon forming in Seattle in 2004, Band Of Horses hit the ground running. After landing an early break supporting Sub Pop stalwarts, Iron And Wine in 2005, South Carolina native Ben Bridwell – along with ‘Carrissa’s Weird’ bandmate Mat Brooke, Chris Early (bass) and Tim Meinig (drums) – caught the label’s attention, later releasing their first recording, the aptly titled, ‘Tour EP’.
The band’s debut album, Everything All The Time, was released in 2006 to a slew of positive reviews, scoring high on many a music critic’s end of year list. Mixing Bridwell’s ethereal, reverb-laden vocals with swathes of thick, enveloping guitars, and a strong country/Americana influence, praise for the album snowballed, drawing comparisons to Neil Young, My Morning Jacket and The Flaming Lips. First single, ‘The Funeral’ took the band’s popularity to unpredictable new heights though, gracing every film, teen drama, sitcom, talk show, computer game and commercial it could get its anthemic hooks into – with several other tracks such as ‘Monsters’ and ‘Part One’ following in similar footsteps – a trend that continued with later releases. Relocating to South Carolina shortly after, this success was soon eclipsed – barely a year later – by the group’s second album, Cease To Begin. Building on the sound cemented by their first effort, Cease To Begin was a solid body of work in its own right, spawning a host of equally lighters-in-the-air tearjerkers such as ‘Is There A Ghost’, ‘Detlef Schrempf’ and ‘No One’s Gonna Love You’. After intensive worldwide touring, where they brought their
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soaring, melancholic rock to T in the Park, Glastonbury and Roskilde, the band took their collective foot off, and regrouped for a fairly quiet 2009.
Now with a revised line-up of Bridwell, Ryan Monroe, Tyler Ramsey, Bill Reynolds, and Creighton Barrett, BOH began work on a third LP last year, recording across the US, from the Mojave Desert to Alabama. The result, Infinite Arms [released last month on Columbia] marks a significant creative shift for the band, with Bridwell relinquishing sole control over songwriting and the band on DIY production duties. Inspired by their own wanderlust, as well as Bridwell’s foray into parenthood, the record continues the country-tinged anthemic rock of its predecessors, and perhaps more than ever, fits the ‘Americana’ banner often hung on the band’s sound. However you want to label it, Infinite Arms, having finally breached the Billboard top ten – and entering the UK top 40 for the first time – marks a high point, and probably a commercial breakthrough moment, in an already intense ride for Band Of Horses. For those who missed BOH at 2008’s T in the Park, this rare appearance in Glasgow alongside the UK’s own anthemic chart-botherers Snow Patrol – and the always excellent Frightened Rabbit – is unmissable – whether you’re a recent convert, or just want to hear ‘The Funeral’ blasted across Scotland’s biggest city on a summer’s night.
Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, with Snow Patrol, Frightened Rabbit and Editors, Sat 12 Jun.