>>PREVIEW
TANGIERS
Saturday, October 29
The Hifi Club
Tangiers burst on the Canadian indie rock scene in 2003 with their debut Hot New Spirits. That release, on Sonic Unyon records, channelled punk rock energy into a batch of songs influenced not only by the British Invasion, but also by the fact that they recorded the album in less than a week.
When it came time to follow it up, they had a shift in lineup and sound. Founding members James Sayce and Josh Reichmann anchored the band’s guitar-based musings, but 2004’s Never Bring You Pleasure resided in the best parts of Canadian indie rock territory. Now, making a jump to Beaudelaire Records in Canada and French Kiss Records in the U.S. (the label that is home to New York art rockers Les Savvy Fav), the lineup has survived the transition, but the Tangiers sound has evolved again. Their latest effort, The Family Myth, still sees Sayce and Reichmann sharing songwriting duties, but this time, the album has a bit of an ’80s flavour. Well, to some it does. As far as the band is concerned, Tangiers is the same as they ever were.
"It’s definitely an indie rock record," says Sayce. "Indie rock has always borrowed heavily from all sorts of eras including the 1980s. On our first record, a lot of people thought it sounded a lot like the Buzzcocks, which is a band that played around in the ’80s. The second album, a lot of people thought we sounded like post punk, proto punk… which is an era that spent most of its existence in the 1980s. I have heard a few people say it sounds like an ’80s record, but I don’t think that is necessarily anything new for us."
What did change for Tangiers was the fact that they were able to take more time to work on this group of songs. The first album was a DIY studio whirlwind and number two offered the band a chance for more introspection. Sayce sees The Family Myth as an extension of their sophomore effort with more thoughtful, focused and introspective lyrics.
"We had more time to play together, more time to gel," says Sayce. "We were able to focus more on songwriting. We had time to hang out and flesh this record out."
Fair enough, but that ’80s sound is pretty distinct. "The Coast Guard" shuffles along with the intensity of a mid-tempo tune by The Smiths, "Renewed Love" hints at vintage Talking Heads and any number of other songs wouldn’t be out of place on the soundtrack to a Molly Ringwald teen movie.
"That could have been due to the fact that we went into a pretty hi-tech studio for this record," says Sayce. "We also had a producer that we didn’t have on either of the first two records." Working at Gigantic Studios with Chris Zane, who also produced Les Saavy Fav and Ambulance Ltd., has certainly given the album a unified feel, especially when it comes to Zane’s choice for guitar tones.
"If there is a departure in sound to be more of an ’80s thing, that would probably be chalked up to the fact that we had higher fidelity. Instead of relying on the charm of the second record, which we made in an old converted portable on the Toronto Island. This time we went and made a slicker record." Sayce, however, isn’t content to be labelled a retro revivalist or to have the Tangiers sound described with such narrow parameters.
"Saying we sound like The Smiths is a bit of a stretch because there are certain guitar sounds that The Smiths would get or there are certain signature things that they have that we don’t have.
"Plus, the things that we are singing about are a lot weirder than anything they would have touched on. The subject matter is not necessarily something one of those bands would have sung about. It’s not just ‘Hey, hey, yeah, yeah’ or, in the Smiths case, ‘I’m gay, that’s weird.’ We sing about demographic shifts and our girlfriends fighting with us. There is a lot more going on than you could sum up with an English Beat reference." |
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