review:
bravecaptain are martin carr’s (he of boo radleys fame) new band. when the boos imploded they left us with the surefire royalty maker of ‘wake up boo’ and conversely some of the more interesting music to come from liverpool in the early ‘90s. fortunately for us carr has stepped forward with a band that sounds experimental, but also has a neat line in great tunes.

bravecaptain appear to be taking the recent sounds of mercury rev and flaming lips, and bred them with everyone’s favourite loft-dwelling, fridge-painting english hippy, syd barrett. the result is interesting to say the least. it’s not easily defined, which is a good thing, but the tunes are still evident, and with a bit of luck bravecaptain could be one of the more successful curiosities produced this year. the only unpleasant surprise is when they play the boos’ ‘lazarus’, strummed mildly on guitar it seems a shadow of it’s former self, and not a little lost in amongst the rest of the set.

lowgold have toured with grandaddy, doves, and coldplay in the recent past, all widely successful bands in their own right. so can they follow suit? with their album released and a headline tour they should be bound for stardom with all its trimmings, right? well don’t hold your breath. for a band who so loudly claim to be great songwriters there are precious few that lodge themselves firmly in your head. the best song they’ve got is ‘beauty dies young’, which borrows heavily from wheat’s ‘don’t i hold you’, and sadly, it doesn’t really measure up. perhaps the most telling point about the lowgold live experience is that their bass player is centre stage and he is the most interesting member of the band, ferchristsakes. the whole thing’s all rather bland, and there are other bands doing this kind of thing better, so do we really need lowgold? what do you think?

review by allin pratt (for night shift)

if you have any reviews, photos or setlists from previous bravecaptain live shows, please email them to sparky@bravecaptain.co.uk.

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