A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

So, because this week­end was a com­plete write-off in terms of gigs I meant to go to (I’m plac­ing the blame squarely on the shoul­ders of the weather and com­ing home from a visa run to Hong Kong; they’re solid shoul­ders), I’ll intro­duce an album I’ve had the most con­flicted feel­ings about since I bought it a few weeks ago. I only bought this album a few weeks ago, in a large pur­chase from the afore­men­tioned Music Store, and after giv­ing it a good lis­ten, I’ve decided that I like it.

This album has its down­sides, of course. It’s the band’s first shot at a stu­dio album, after hav­ing appeared on a cou­ple of live record­ing short-release albums, and I have to say it’s a pretty good shot. Com­pared with what a lot of bands put out, it’s fan­tas­tic. The biggest down­fall these record­ings suf­fer is a touch of over-production. Everything’s a lit­tle too bal­anced, a lit­tle too easy to lis­ten to, when you can hear — just behind every­thing com­ing out of your speak­ers — some real poten­tial in the music. But what I really love about the songs on this album are the singer’s voice. It’s got a touch of the nasal about it, but in the fun-loving Super­grass kind of way, not the annoy­ing Conor Oberst kind of way.

There are some truly fun songs on this album, which I don’t hes­i­tate to admit that I like the best. 圈 (Cir­cle), 王子复仇记 (Ham­let), 生之爱 (Life’s Love) are among my favorites, just because they’re easy to lis­ten to and you can clearly hear the effort behind them. They’re snappy and mem­o­rable (espe­cially 圈), and you can imag­ine just what it would be like to stand in the crowd lis­ten­ing to this song. Other songs remind me of other bands (尾巴/Tail sounds like it comes straight off the Hed­wig & The Angry Inch cast record­ings), and their influ­ences are clearly set in the late-nineties British pop/rock tra­di­tion, but over­all I think it makes for a good album.

There’s sounds you rec­og­nize and those that are orig­i­nal, and what it does best is make you want to see where they’re play­ing next.

Check out GAR’s gigs and more at the Bei­jing Gig Guide.