Reverendo Brown: Live Music Review
Razzamatazz 3, Feb 2010, Barcelona, Spain
I have to say I quite like Reverendo Brown. This Barcelona Pop/ Rock quintet take from quite a few influences from different musical styles and directions.
The end result is very pleasant, their songs uplifting with an occult lower sadness that really needs to come out. I’ll come on to this in a bit. The band has already proved their mettle, getting through to the semi-finals of Barcelona’s prestigious Emergenzia’s Battle of the Bands.
**Reverendo Brown Concert Highlights
The second song of the evening, “Luciernagas” kicked off with a great keyboard intro and waded into Radiohead style guitar work. Coupled off with a confident and energy vocal delivery this song didn’t disappoint the audience.
“Pupilas” , I enjoyed a lot. This song carries with it Rafa [the guitarist] leads with a indie, brit rock riffs while Christian on bass delivers solid rock edgy emotion beautifully. Estíbaliz gave some Siouxsie Souix, vocal delivery[of Siouxsie and the Banshees fame] that got me a dancing baby! Great tune!
I think this is one of their stronger set songs.
I think the song would be even stronger with some male octave or tonal vocal harmonies.
“El Lado fresquito de la Almohada”, I personally think they ought to enter this song for Eurovision for the song for Spain. One of their strongest Spanish feeling indie / rock numbers thatthe crowd instantly moves, nods and dances to! The keyboard melodies race ahead without abating, driving the hands in the air of the audience. Rúben behind the drums puts his heart into strong percussive hi-hat and snare delivery. The song is near perfect.
For me, maybe they could do with some more phrasal spacing in the builds. I’d love to hear a hard house version of this song. RB, send it to Paul Oakenfold.… I think it’ll be a winner!
Reverendo Brown, covered “Creep“, the infamous Radiohead number. This showed a more serious nature to the band. The best thing is they carried it off perfectly, the edginess of the song showed a more delicate and emotional edge to the band. They were in tune with the song. The drum lines were perfectly delivered by Rúben giving the song a familiar pace and feel.
This shows the band has a lot more promise to carry off emotive songs through their delivery! I want to see more of this please!
“Vampiros” is where I think the keyboard melodies are very Killers orientated with strong Oreja de Van Gogh style vocals. With the pace set the band loved us and left us with I believe one of their strongest songs, “Malo Final“. This song for me topped, “El Lado fresquito de la Almohada”, but only just.
I’d say if you’re in a tough spot Reverendo Brown, I’d play “Malo Final“, first to get the crowd going and don’t give up! Nice one boys and girls!
**Concert low lights
There’s not much to fault this band on. As I said, I think they could start to show a bit more indie edginess that’ll set them apart from being perceived as just another Spanish pop/rock band.
Reverendo Brown deserve more. With 2 of their stronger songs, plus their cover, ‘Creep’, has shown more musical depth to touch and convey emotion that the band put into their numbers.
Sadly, the key influences drift towards the pop angle, which is okay. However, it is not enough to get them really noticed as something different from the plethora of other great Spanish pop/rock bands out there.
I’d say their brit indie guitar lines from Rafa, I enjoyed a lot. Together with a great fusion of brit/iberican pop/rock [look at the newer direction of Vertusa Morla] seems to have some life, and something to set them apart.
Estíbaliz lead singer needs to be a lot more versatile on-stage and get away from the stand alone mike. She interacts great with the band but she’s mainly static on stage and isn’t enough to kick you in the balls during the choruses [which are very strong] .
Estíbaliz please get up close to the crowd, play around with the band more. During the concert there was some interaction but it could be better with some of their slower numbers and male vocal harmonies that’d bring a dimension of band cohesion.
**About Reverendo Brown, their influences and members
The female vocal lead band take a great chunk of their influence from Spanish Rock / Pop gods of music. Notably their sound is very Oreja de Van Gogh, with The Killers, REM and Radiohead thrown in for good measure.
Suprisingly the vocals, guided by the bands sound at times sounds very Souisie & the Banshees. A nice touch!
Behind the keyboards resides Alfredo, the band’s chief composer adding in great rhythmic and ambient chords, giving the band a great anthemic feel. It’s hard to place exactly where his influence is. The nearest would be compared to Brandon Flowers of The Killers fame.
Set List:
Carmen San Diego
Luciernagas
Pupilas
El Lado fresquito de la Almohada
Lagartos
Creep
Vampiros
Malo Final
