in medias res / dangerbot
12-08-2011
raw sugar cafe, ottawa
i'd hazard a guess that the singer/guitarist for dangerbot really likes her vox amp. vox amps have a reputation for crystal clear reproduction with almost no interference. this allows the guitarist to define the sound within the pedal board while minimizing noise and distortion coming from the amp. it comes with a caveat, however - you can't turn it up too loud because, like any other amp, it will drive if you do that, defeating the whole point of using a vox amp. it seemed as though she was conscious of this fact last night because she seemed to be cautious about turning her amp up too much......
this led to situations where an observer could view her fingers moving and yet not clearly hear what she was playing, a huge shame given that it looked like she was doing something cool. should the rest of the band turn down to compensate? no. in the future, she should either mic her amp or get a bigger one.
at their core, dangerbot are a pretty unadventurous female-fronted indie rock act but they bring a couple of interesting, novel aspects in. the biggest thing to note is the keyboard player, who is not afraid to jump into romantic era piano noodling. another thing to note is the creative use of guitar effects, which is a little muted in the above (now deleted...) track but comes out at other points.
they still have a bit of work to do in defining and perfecting their sound, but the piano-guitar-vocal interplay is a winning combination and i'd recommend keeping an eye on them because there's potential here for something interesting.
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vancouver's in media res seem to have a back catalog, although they don't seem to promote it. there's absolutely no information about their new album on their webpage, leading one to wonder how many records they've actually released. they've existed since at least 2002 and have released at least two records and at least one ep.
in that time, they seem to have explored a collection of sounds that overlap into post, indie, 'gaze, alt-country and dream territory, coalescing into a dreary, radiohead-esque haze if what i saw last night is indicative of their new record, which they did indeed claim was the case. they also seem to have an expanded palette for instrumentation, but that's to be expected from canadian rock bands in this era and has lost almost all of it's novelty.
a sound they seem to be exploring right now is one that runs a lap steel guitar through massive walls of reverb over a jazzish post-rock rhythm section and melancholy indie vocals. i have to report that it's well constructed in terms of interesting, detailed songwriting but it's not something that i find appealing. to me, it's a little bit prodding and shapeless. it lacks the kind of dynamics that i crave from all rock music, especially rock music that is in some way derived from post-rock.
at their core, however, they're a standard four-piece indie rock band, and most of their material seems to exist more solidly in that footing. the focus of the band appears to be to push a dreary, barren sound void of all emotional highs and lows, but they keep it interesting by mixing it up with a high attention to detail. that includes unexpected volume swells, heavy effects usage and a tendency to collapse into noise-rock guitar solos, the latter of which i found to be the most appealing aspect of the act.
every once in a while, you run into an act that you recognize as standing above the pack in some way but just doesn't appeal to your tastes. i'd walk across the street on a boring night to see these guys live a second time, but my interest in tracking them or buying their records is not high. nonetheless, i'd recommend them highly to people that actually like formless, melancholy indie rock because they have a higher attention to detail than i'm used to hearing from the genre.
i don't have footage from ottawa, but this is some footage from the same tour: