MyspaceWatch: Sometime Around Midnight + Gasoline
Buy: Amazon
Album Rating: 9.1 / 10
One of my favourite finds of the past year, TATE are simply fantastic live and on record to and their self titled album released this year in the UK will be in my top five of this year no doubt.
I only discovered them in October last year when they played Camden's Dublin Castle for consecutive Tuesday gigs, the UK rumblings could be seen in the big cities, a gig at the 100 club sold out quickly, as did one at Kings College. The airplay for Sometime Around Midnight got as far as BBC radio, this time the hype is deserved. Gasoline, a fantastic guitar pop/rock song was the first song I heard and it's still great today. Somewhere Around Midnight has rightly propelled them towards commercial success. The sweeping violin, the slow-burning build up to a spectacularly frantic finish. Perfection. The pinnacle of this album is the last song of the US release, Innocence a Jim Steinman-esque intro, and as with the whole album a tour-de-force of lyrical story-telling.
I've seen a lot of bad reviews for this album, but what do these critical 'expert' reviews mean precisely? I mean Queen II got critically smashed on it's arrival and that is one of Rocks classic pioneering albums and everyone know what followed from the minds of Mr Mercury and co.
I'd rather bands go for something to please their fans, then the critics. I am sure they'd love an experimental shin-dig if it was done for the first ever time but a band with a violinist the isn't Win Butler and entourage - oh my, oh no.
Similarities to The Arcade Fire, The Hold Steady and other bands from the other side of the pond will be drawn, but let that not detract that The Airborne Toxic Event are most definitely unique. Highly recommended 9.1/10
Innocence - Amazing
Sometime Around Midnight Promo:
Sometime Around Midnight Promo:
