Tender Is The Band

The "fresh blood" saga goes on. This time, the subject of the article is Dick Diver, an Australian band, formed in 2008, and named after the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, Tender Is The Night. The band features guitarists/singers/songwriters Alistair McKay and Rupert Edwards, bassist Al Montfort (UV Race, Straightjacket Nation) and drummer Steph Hughes (ex-Children Collide, Home & Hosed co-presenter).

As they are a rather new band, is somehow natural that their songs still don't have what I like to call the oh-my-God-I-know-that-band feeling. Rather than that, their music gives you the feeling of something you've heard and liked before. The instrumentals are very well structured and really elaborated, and fit very naturally with McKay and Edwards' voices.

Two of their most interesting songs are Walk for Room (it has a very nice and cheerful guitar line and it's a strong piece, even if, or maybe just because it lasts less than two minutes) and Biffo (which becomes so creepy at a certain point that it is just wonderful). Both tracks can be found on their Arks Up EP, which has been released at the beginning of this month. And I'd suggest you to keep an eye on them, because this seems to be a very promising debut.

*photo courtesy of Dick Diver MySpace

Echoes

I think it’s only fair that we should get something out of the way: post-punk bands are always going to be influenced by Joy Division. Even more so if they come from Eastern Europe (as someone who lives here and is aware of some bits and pieces of eastern indie, I can say it as a fact). Yes, they are all sucking on the corpse of Ian Curtis and they are all trying to reach the other three while their blood is still warm. And even if this is not a stated influence, some cunning music journalist/blogger/fanatic will say there is a bit of the four Manchurians’ music hidden somewhere in the instrumental.

Motorama came from southern Russia (Roston-on-Dov for those of you who are huge nerds and need to know the exact place) and play post-punk. Traditional post-punk. By saying this, I can actually end my presentation of this band and invite you all to visit their official Myspace/site. Alas, I feel obliged to continue and mention the exact Joy Division period. For Motorama’s major inspiration comes from early Joy Division, when the music was not suffocating and it incorporated danceable bass lines and drum patterns combined with echoing vocals.

Now, I know you might think that maybe I just see this Joy Division influence because, like most music journalists/bloggers, this is all I can think of. So this is when I invite you to listen to the four Russians music and try to ignore the vocals, which sound exactly like Curtis’s voice. So all that’s really left is to keep our fingers crossed they will get big enough to tour outside Mother Russia.

I should also point out that you’ll be able to find many songs to download on their official site, including early demos and a live version of their song Somersault (the lead singer, Vladislav, sounds even more like the ghost of Curtis). The English accent seems perfect so this gets them extra points (rarely do Eastern European bands have a good accent and I fail to see why as I know plenty of Eastern Europeans who have great English accents).

Well Known Pleasures

"I always knew Ian Curtis isn't actually dead." Your first thought when you hear O Children. However, before starting to really believe that Curtis is alive, along with Cobain and of course, with Hendrix, you realise that you don't listen to Joy Division, but to some other band. A new one. The band born from the ashes of Bono Must Die, called O Children (yes, yes, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, you got that right).

Now, even though we're speaking about another band than Joy Division, the first impression remains. O Children could call themselves "Ian's Children" and that wouldn't be very far from the truth. Their songs give you a dark feeling, resembling that kind of feeling you have when you listen any song from Unknown Pleasures.

The most interesting (or should I say creepiest) of all of their songs is Dead Disco Dancer, lyrically as well as instrumentally. And when you see the video, you cannot help but remember The Horrors appearance, even if the resemblance between these two bands is not actually as obvious as it seems. It's just about the way they move, and a little bit about the way they dress.

However, even if their songs are good, it seems that they still don't have that certain something which makes you jump from your seat and scream "Oh, that's THAT band, you know it!" But it also seems they're on the right way. Their tunes are good enough to make you listen to them, and listen carefully. And if you like no-matter-what-band-with-creepy-lyrics-and-creepy-instrumentals-and-creepy-appearance, you might like these guys too. A few more songs like Dead Disco Dancer and Dead Eye Lover and we might have a very interesting album to talk about.