Glint
Where: Ruby Lounge, Manchester
When: 23rd July 2009
New York is a city with a musical legacy.
A city that has been responsible for producing some of the world’s best bands including the likes of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Ramones and The Velvet Underground.
However Glint do not share the merits of their more successful neighbours.
Although the band are obviously talented musicians they were uninspiring to watch when I caught them at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge on July 23 – their second UK gig.
Glint obviously put a lot into their music, which I would describe as the product of putting early Cooper Temple Clause, Andreas Johnson, Lee Evans and Muse into a caravan and getting a load of builders to shake it into a music smoothy.
On stage founder members Jase Blankfort (guitar and vocals) and Mat Tebaldi (drums) clearly take what they do very seriously; Blankfort scrunching his eyes with effort and Tebaldi turning his grey t-shirt black with sweat (hence the Lee Evans comparison).
When asked how they describe the music and the influences upon it Mat said: “I really enjoy industrial music and I love Nine Inch Nails but we can’t be compared with that. We’re not trying to copy anything that has come before.”
Eno-lover Jase added: “Our music is about taking the listener by the hand and bringing them through the sound to realise the story we’re trying get across.”
These comments left me completely at a loss about what the hell they were on about. Anyway…
Glint made their debut UK release on August 3 with their self-titled EP containing five decent songs, or “stories”, of dark atmospheric rock electronica. Track two ‘Hold Still’ is probably the best of the bunch.
The bands first album ‘Sound in Silence’, released 2008, is actually better than this EP despite the addition of two new members to Glint and homemade “organic reverb chambers”. This band needs to lighten up.
I enjoy dark art rock but Glint push the idea too far without having the poignancy in their sound to back it up. When asked to describe their new single ‘Freak’ the band said: “We want to let the listener interpret it for themselves…we’re not a single orientated band.” – for God’s sake!
Flaky doesn’t fly with me boys.
Glint’s technical musical ability isn’t the thing in question. It’s how they have lent their personality to the music which is the problem. I think dance remixes of Glint’s music would fare better with me. This ambient ‘art’ is just far too pretentious.
You can check the band out all over the UK and Europe. Listen to 'Freak' via http://www.relyrecords.com/audio/ep/freakradio.mp3 and make-up your own mind.
Words: Will Astbury
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