++GIG REVIEW++
Cindy Suzuki heads to South London to investigate a band that mix up tight riffing with the grand melodies of Mademoiselle Bowie...
Sometimes all a band needs is the 50 yard stare. It's the distant, crazed stare of a madman, a man who's been down the rabbit hole... and brought some of it back with him.
Well this group have that for sure, and a lot more up their sleeve. Like a big bastard contradiction, they bounce between new wave spiky riffs and the kind of grand gestures that could send them to the superdomes. They also possess a Bowie-like ability to feel out hooks in the dark.
"what GLYFAL have in their DNA is ideas - and they shoot 'em out like fireworks... "
Rumour has it that Pete and the Pirates A&R peeps are lurking about tonight - and maybe they're thinking what I'm thinking, that these chaps have "next", "big" and "thing" transmitting from their teeth like some kind of coded alien message.
Thankfully, that doesn't mean that they sound like The Feeling. Songs like 'Upsticks' are closer in spirit to The Killers before they started shagging U2. The music is driven by an underlying insecurity, which propels it onwards and upwards.
Singer Gareth Moss (he of the 50 yard stare) lurches about like a glam rock scarecrow, high fiving all the notes that get spines tingling. Some of his falsetto moments can recall Matt Bellamy, but hopefully he'll iron those into a more personal signature.
Spiky riffs and complicated compositions are yadda yadda yadda these days - for most bands they've become mandatory requirements. But what GLYFAL have in their DNA is ideas - and they shoot 'em out like fireworks. Catch them live, and you'll catch a fiendish proposition.
++ Cindy Suzuki ++
Artrocker rating: 4
The newest sounds as heard in the Artrocker Office and our Resonance FM podcast.
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