Innocence and Glee: Architecture in Helsinki at Blender
If your breakfast cereal has tasted especially sweet lately, its probably the excess sugar that [Architecture in Helsinki ]typically leaves behind in a billowy cloud of innocence and glee. But wait! If youve heard their new record, that sugar and glee may have turned to dust and sandpaper. Lead singer Cameron Birds new tack of practically screaming his vocals on Places Like This harshes my buzz, and yours too if youre not careful.
Fortunately, their new album sounds better on stage than it does on disc. The hippie collective lit it up at the Gramercy Theater, paying tribute to Jim Morrison, Crocodile Dundee, one of Birds friends from high school, and a Belgian man whose newborn daughter was conceived after a previous AiH show.
The set was raucous as they went to town on trumpet, sax, trombone, synth, bongos, guitar, bass n drums and, yes, the triangle. I actually heard a guy lean over to his friend and say, This is weird, during an abrupt silence. Bird & Co. cut into it, and the show reached its heights with Debbie, and the bizarrely ska-punk Like it or not. The crowd was excited. Dancing was rampant. They covered the 1985 hit Live it up by Mental As Anything, straight off the Crocodile Dundee soundtrack, just to prove to the world theyre true Australians.
The opening act, Panther, was essentially a one-man show. The singer crooned and wailed echo-laden mysteries while jerking around spastically on stage to live drums and prerecorded beats. After Panther, LO-FI-FNK came on, a Swedish euro-dance trio that failed to deliver on their implied promise of, well, fnk. Wheres the hook, kids?