Is Tropical, Glasser, Milk: one step forward, two steps back

The Lexington
4 March 2010

Towards the end of a slightly un-together set, openers Milk mentioned that this was their first gig, which was a modest surprise - the proceedings had been a bit haphazard at times, especially with one apparently mucked-up drumbeat, but overall no real train-wreck. More bothersome than their performance was their apparent arrival straight from 1984; patterned puffy-sleeved shirts buttoned up to the neck may, perhaps, be forgiveable, but sounding similarly retrospective is less appealing. Why bother being in a band that just sounds like a composite of an edition of the David Kid Jensen show? For all that, they seem to have something about them, and if they can get over the 80's thing they still might find what they are looking for, ho ho.

Glasser also surprised with their unexpected costumes, which seemed to signify that they weren't confident in just going out and playing, which was also reflected in the absence of any chat whatsoever. They whacked out a massive, fuzzy, unclear, overly bass-heavy sound that did themselves no favours at all; I have tracks of theirs that could probably work with being beefed up (dumbed down?) for live shows, but not to this extent. Whether it was down to the sound guy or their own preference is hard to say, but all subtleties were lost in the mess, which was a shame. Apply was one of my most-played tracks of last year, and I was hoping to come away from this with more to enjoy, but not on this showing.

Then after that mis-firing version of The Future, we again went straight back in time - Is Tropical hardly made a sound that couldn't be identified with another era, although they managed it in fairly diverting fashion. Despite the extremely simple melodies the set blared along well enough, with epic guitar & synth-driven sounds and inevitably crashing drums to the fore, but on principle I have to be a bit suspicious of a band whose best track seems to be inspired by Eye Level from The Simon Park Orchestra.