The Phantom Band
Oran Mor, Glasgow
21/11/2010

‘The Wants’, The Phantom Band’s second album, represents a creative breakthrough for the Glasgow-based band, and is part of a loosely-related progressive streak currently cutting a swathe through Scottish music alongside tonight’s support band Found, who demonstrate ambitious experimental tendencies and Edinburgh’s Meursault who are also unafraid of showing their more expansive side. The six-piece, more bearded than not, have begun to demonstrate a clear musical personality built on motorik beats, sinister lyrical images and unexpectedly strident guitar riffs.

The glam-stomp of the appropriately named ‘A Glamour’ kicks things off and the compulsive, layered melodies of ‘O’ position singer Rick Anthony as a vengeful librarian threatening to “get all these books and burn them” over some muscular bass playing which builds to a roaring conclusion underpinned by an electronic storm. ‘Folksong Oblivion’, looming like a werewolf in the woods, demonstrates that the foundations for the band’s increasingly singular sound were laid on their debut album, 2009’s criminally neglected ‘Checkmate Savage’. The 80s gothic drama of ‘Into The Corn’ is full of their characteristic brand of brooding restraint, but grooves like a spooky Beta Band. Comparisons are hard to make, but at times they sound like the monstrous offspring of Stereolab and Big Country - metronomic percussion somehow mashing perfectly with peculiarly Scottish guitar sounds that should be chiming through mythic highland landscapes.

‘Come Away In The Dark’ is a comparatively delicate folk song, proof that sometimes it’s more effective to hold back the noise. They have ideas to burn, but The Phantom Band are careful not to squeeze in too many at once. The taut beats of ‘Left Hand Wave’ are greeted enthusiastically by this sold out, home town crowd. Indeed the band are enjoying this, the last night of their tour, and when Rick passes his bottle of whisky to the crowd, it is passed around, never to be seen again.

Lucy Brouwer