Live review: Overhead the Albatross
Traveling for music is something I’ve been doing a lot in recent years. Mainly to Ireland and around the U.K but because of my roots and music tastes generally being of Irish origin I always seem to end up back in Dublin.
Ireland is home to a very lively music scene which is also very eclectic; from indie bands like The Academic to grunge rock bands like Otherkin and songwriters like Gavin James and Hozier. There’s always a gig to go to and refreshingly there’s seemingly no one defined genre that has to be popular at any given time.
So after a weekend in Dublin I’m writing this review of Overhead the Albatross who’re an instrumental band made up of a number of musicians from Dublin and it’s surrounding counties. On Saturday the 9th of April they played at The Workmans club in the Temple Bar district, this time without the interruption of a power-cut and it was glorious.
The gig was free/pay what you want- the money made is for their Canadian fund as they’ll go over the pond in May to play some shows. Just by chance I bumped into their keyboardist David Prendergast at another gig the night before and was advised to head down early as there would likely be a lot of people trying to get into the show and as it turned out he was right because there were over 200 people being turned away throughout the night; luckily however I managed to get in.
Overhead the Albatross’s two support acts were Versive and Yonen. Versive who’re an alternative rock band played a half hour long set, admittedly as soon as they started playing I immediately though of system of a down due to the level of rock leaning at times toward metal but thought the set the guitar changed tone and style so many times making it hard to pinpoint exactly which genre to put to their name- which is great as its hard to come across completely individual styles these days in a musical world which is currently saturated by bands trying to recreate sounds from the late 70’s and 80’s. By the time they'd consigned their set the room was starting to fill up and the crowd were buzzing.
The main support act Yonen were an instrumental band which seemed to make more sense as Overhead the albatross are also an instrumental sextet… Sorry I just had to use that word!
Yonen are more rockier than overhead but share the cinematic feel, in Yonen’ case their sound is most fitting to a mystery or thriller film with some laid back scenes in shiny bars between investigations.
Now, after both support acts the room was full to capacity which was full of an expectant buzz. Me and my friend Lorna were sat on the top of a sofa against the wall near the front of the room so we could see the stage over the hordes of people coming back from the bar and toilets whilst the bands changed over their equipment and set up OTA’s.
When Overhead the Albatross appeared on stage there were many cheers and after a Daffy Duck esqe introduction, Joe Panama (Bass) introduced their song Telekinetic forest guard, a mellow instrumental song featuring strings and delicate keys, like many of the songs to come raising and lowering dynamics adding to the bands cinematic instrumental style. They played a mix of their songs including The big river man a song bordering on math rock is another of overhead the albatross’ instrumental songs. As soon as it began a sea of head bangers made the room come alive adding to the already cinematic air in the small crowded room which continued throughout the night. By the time they'd finished their set and left the stage after a good hour and a half the crowd started shouting 'one more song!' Which in anyone's book is the sign of a good gig, it truely was amazing!
Overhead the albatross’s debut album “Learning to Growl” will be out on May the 13th and is available for pre order here.
https://overheadthealbatross.bandcamp.com/album/learning-to-growl-2