Hey Hey, My My
I remember several months ago, a young lad by the name of William Leonard came to me, looking for my minidisc player. Pressed into my hand was a red square, which were the beginnings of something important. This was a local bands first demo, by the name of ‘The Rising’ and Si Jones had made the whole demo himself. Yup, all the instruments and singing. And backing vocals
All the tracks were great, and soon I had instructed Mr Leonard to burn it onto cd. This would be a practice we would be getting used to. Several months and a name change later, I was able to get a ticket for the semi final of the competition, which ‘Amanacer’ were playing, in London. I can tell you, they were by far the best band on the night, which may have been because the other bands were hair metal, nu metal, and well, crap. But Amanacer, who were introduced as being influenced by ‘Coldplay, Oasis and Radiohead’ played their hearts out, as you can hear from the live tracks from that gig on the bands website. They deservedly won, beating bands like Coma Kai (www.amanacer.co.uk) Fast forward another couple of months, and a new demo was produced. This time featuring 8 songs, with two live tracks from the aforementioned gig.
Overthrown is an excellent intro track, an instrumental that starts off with swirling flangey feedback stuff, which goes into a huge pickslide and a distorted riff. The guitar is really being shredded with mini solos galore. This lets you know that the band kicks arse and isn’t afraid to show it. GRRRRRRR!
Automatic Lives is my favourite track from the band, and the angst ridden lyrics of si make the song, ‘You didn’t impress me with your tight fit jeans and small tattoo’s’ as well as a thoughtful chord progression, punchy chords and meaningful lyrics are the order of the day, and a lovely calm down stage with a brilliant solo make this song. What I like about it is it has a lot of stages, as opposed to, verse, chorus, verse. Unfortunately the band does not seem to play this one live!!! The track ends with the powerful words ‘We look through the glass and what do we see?’ ‘GOD ONLY KNOWS, GOD ONLY KNOWS’ followed by a nice long musey outro. Top song!
Learn to fly is a song popular with the loyal fan base, a song that starts mellow with arpeggios and chillis style playing at times. This is a slow track that livens up with the catchy chorus ‘you and I will learn to fly… I never said that I wont make you cry’. This is a great track for the ladies! Backing vocals add to the mood and drunken fans can often be heard singing the chorus to one another. A beautiful solo is played at about 2:40, before the song livens up, with lovely slides being used, which really add to the song. Beautiful lads, beautiful!
Waiting for tonight was a new song added for the new demo, and is perhaps their mellowest song. It starts off with acoustic guitar, chords and plucking. The guitar later adds a chorus effect (think nirvana – come as you are style effect, but mellow…) It pulls on the heartstrings as the vocals hit the high notes, and proves the, strength of the vocals. However, the drums kick in after a minute or so with the chorus, and the song gets louder, which provides the memorable lyrics as shown in the title.
We gat along is another pub goers chant and acoustic guitar strumming and angst ridden words courtesy of Jones. The chorus features more thoughtful lyrics about a girl that ‘gets along’ with him but;’that’s all it seems to be’. Touching, Touching, and very, very catchy. After the chorus, more great finger picking on the old acoustic. Again, no drums for a lot of this track, but still powerful
Snipers in some circles are not appreciated, but some of us appreciate its mastery. A more depressing sort of acoustic melody, with high notes and great picking technique. At 2:02 it’s a short track, but it ends with a great chord and makes you think. So it is slightly depressing it is a great ending, for the next song
Back at mine is the most popular of all the amanacer tracks, thanks to its uplifting tempo. It reminds me of sitting in a park. At 3pm. On a Sunday. With a beer. It’s summery track, with the best bass work on the album, loud bass, which makes the song, have rhythm, acoustic guitar and great drums. The lyrics on this song are wonderful, ‘ I tried to make that move, but I don’t know what to do, and time is running out, last orders nearly her…s what do you propose??’ and the way there is clapping integrated into the song, and a !!dayum!!! Good distorted solo makes this a very popular number. I strongly suggest you go download the live version from www.amanacer.co.uk
Track 8 is overthrown live, taken from the semi final gig, followed by jump the gun, where more chorusy style effects are used, powerful drums, and si tries a different singing style and tone. ‘And if you don’t…just try to think….” – queue powerchords and general rocking ness and backing vocals!!
Why do you go is the next song, that is again performed live, and this song reminds me of the end of a movie, it has that’ we’ve been and gone’ feel to it, like the goals on Sunday music. Hell I don’t know, but if I made a movie, this song would beat the end. The song starts with mysterious bass and lyrics ‘It’s the sound that I…Craaaaaaaaaaaaave’There is excellent delay effects used, which increases the vie further, and the band teases us, by stopping the music a couple of times. One time it goes quiet it suddenly gets damn heavy with power chords, fills and a catchy chorus ‘why did you go…etc’ followed by more delay, verse and chorus. The thing about this song, is it has bloody excellent guitar work, with some of the best harmonic solos I have heard in a long time, and a good like bridge thing with 2 guitars soloing at the same time, this kicks major arse, and was a great ending to the set, again saying, RAHHHHHHHHHHR!
So the demo has heavier and mellow parts, which is why it is Gjb’s cd of the moment.
Last Sunday the final of the competition was on at the Mean Fiddler in London, where the band batted it out with the best of em. After the crowd went completely mental, and some ignorant fool even crowd surfed onto the stage, smashed into the effects pedals and was ushered away by an angry bouncer man. The vibe was all about amanacer, and they really deserved to win. However, Jove won, which were a good band by the way, check em out: www.jove.uk.net. They are really talented and I bought their demo, but the just aren’t as catchy as Amanacer!! The lads were awarded the best band in London tag though, and they resorted to no nu metal screaming and, well, crap. It just goes to show that rock and roll will never die, and Amanacer are a fine example, who can play with the best of em.
Oh, and sorry for landing on the stage guys
GJB