 |
| |
|
| |
Live Review
by SashaS
19-5-2002
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Liam-sized pop emotionalism |
|
Live: Cousteau
Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Saturday, May 18, 2002
Cousteau evoke pride in a true music lover
Stunned in the middle of SBE’s stalls, like a kangaroo in headlights, Cousteau’s songs gleam like a bridge in time, connecting the ‘lost good days’ with our miserable present. With a tonal wand the fivesome manage to erase the temporal divide like a bad dream and enrich this trice of eternity. Reality is certainly suspended while Cousteau play and you can feel it jump-start an internal emotional cascade! (Try impressing this profundity to the enraged drivers in the gridlock outside the venue…)
What Cousteau manage to do, on their debut album and even more so on the forthcoming corker ‘Sirena’, is recall the days when pop music was an elegant affair, lavishly orchestrated and sung with a passion as if one’s life depended on it. It is debonair, flirting, a bit cocky but all organic in its essence, no machines (bar instruments) are endorsed. It reflects the time when pop musicians were true artists rather than the starlets Lego-ized on TV.
Smartly suited singer Liam McKahey commands our attention fully with a vocal as huge as the USA’s delusion of its greatness. His nearest reference point is the legendary Scott Walker, warm, expressive, colorful and sexy. Passion is flowing from every syllable, every phrase is loaded with sentiments, there is breathless anticipation during every pause… Noticeable are also echoes of other (usual) suspects of the Nick Drake and Tim Buckley kind as well as long-departed crooners that frequented The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in its ‘glorious’ gangster (ain’t talking rap ‘ere) era.
Old singles, ‘Last Good Days’, ‘She Don’t Hear Your Prayer’, ‘Wish You Were Her’, are mixed with a few cuts from ‘Sirena’, such as ‘Please Don’t Cry’ and the new single, ‘Talking To Myself’, to seamlessly bland into one giant delight with a minimum of onstage physicality. Well, the flyer outside proclaimed, “Real songs, real emotional power, real musicians.” Tunery for proud POP music lovers…
The following morning is sunny but the memory of darkened room filled with sounds that touched where no tones have visited in eons, is a centrepiece of initial waken hours. Like a great cappuccino, the aftertaste lingers as I flood the ‘hood with songs of ‘Sirena’. Cousteau plug into poetic corner of a soul, Dorianna Gray…
Cousteau were supporting Del Amitri but we preferred watching ‘CSI’ to a band that’s been exaggerating dullness for far too long. Now, have you seen that blonde forensic?! That’s pop!
SashaS
19-5-2002
Cousteau’s album ‘Sirena’ is released 10 June 2002 on Palm Pictures
Cousteau’s single ‘Talking To Myself’ is released 27 May on Palm Pictures
|
|
|
