A Northern Chorus, Sianspheric, Alive and Living @ Lula Lounge

Alive and Living, the first of the night's trio of Hamilton bands, cover similar ground to their headlining colleagues, albeit with a whiff of goth sensibility. Or maybe I felt that way because of the two dark-haired black-clad women in the band.

Sianspheric are chameleons. The first time I saw them, they played on a darkened stage while kaleidoscopic shapes were projected everywhere. The second time I saw them was amidst a continuous cloud of dry ice smoke in a crushingly loud club.

The fourth time I saw them, they were The Verve. They projected a loose, jam-it-out attitude. They scaled back on the FX, had only one guitar player, and the singer was a beer-chugging waif with mussed hair. And now, once again, I think "who are these guys?" as the unfamiliar faces take to the stage*. No projections, no lighting gimmicks, no smoke, just the band and a mainly seated audience lounging in a supper club with oil candles flickering on every table in the room. In this setting, they seem determined to sound as incongruous as possible. Sianspheric are overwhelming tonight, cranking out the fierce, up-front sound of "There's Always Someplace You'd Rather Be" (as opposed to the more laid back, space-rock sound of their first and third records) as if they'd never sounded any different. The lurching, emotional drive of both "Audiophone" and set closer "I Like the Ride" produce a lump in my throat the likes of which I've never felt from this band's music in the seven years it's been since I first heard them. Sianspheric, the band famous for their vanishing guitarists and being notoriously slow-working recluses (only three albums in eleven years), the band currently pushing a career retrospective DVD that has largely been slammed by the press, have never sounded better.

A Northern Chorus certainly try their best to follow all that. The sombre pace and boy/girl harmonies might paint them as a shoegaze version of Low, but the symphonic swells (aided by cello and violin) and massive, outpouring crescendoes aren't too far from Sigur Ros' last two albums. The typical putdown of Sigur Ros is to declare their music boring, with minutes spent waiting for something to happen and being underwhelmed when it finally does. I'm getting a taste of that feeling tonight, but fortunately, A Northern Chorus usually deliver a payoff that is good enough to make me forget it (or ignore it).

* as it turns out, I am not losing my mind: the band's website reports that two members left the band at the conclusion of last spring's tour with A Northern Chorus.