(SELF RELEASED)
reviewed
by Max Malagnino
After
all, it's all about being postmodern.That is, sounding like Radiohead
and Toto in the space of four tracks, maybe slightly shifting to Coldplay
in the meantime. From this point of view, Norway's Gazpacho is an excellent,
melody-forging band, with good tunes, good singing and lots of good ideas.
Looking at the reverse side of it, Gazpacho is a rather bewildered, sound-blurring
band, with lots of (too many perhaps?) good ideas but with a sometimes
uneffective technique to sort and arrange them. Alright, music is everything
but rationalizing, and pastiche might prove aesthetically appealing, were
it only to stop humdrum boredom, but one can't help feeling puzzled when
hearing a song like 'Delete Home' after hearing a track like, say, 'Sea
Of Tranquillity', both included in the 'Get It While It's Cold Ep'. The
former is a pop-prog quasi-lounge sort of track, with shy electric guitars,
and grotesque Toto-sounding backing vocals; the latter has an esoteric,
dramatic crescendo of Yorke-ish circa Pablo Honey intensity, with frontman
'O' feeling pretty at ease amidst acoustic guitars and synth keyboards:
honestly memorable. Elsewhere, they might vaguely remind you of Coldplay,
or Travis, or Marillion (sic), or Depeche Mode, or even have some sort
of 'celtic' flavour ('Bravo') with unique aeshetics though. Gazpacho has
had quite a worldwide cult following now. The guys have also been called
in to support Marillion in their next tour. All of this, they claim, all
by themselves, without a proper production. Which is really something
to boast about, but maybe also the key to their being out of focus here
and there, as if they were eager not to leave out every new sound they
have created or every melody line that might sound okay in this or that
track. Sooner or later, we will hear of them again, hopefully in a press
release from a major label, and hopefully credited as being produced by
some Nigel Goldrich or Ken Nelson, with enough money to optimize the many
good things in there and the guts to remove the unnecessary ones.
