Novella and The Soft Pack at Cargo

Novella reminded me of one of those bands you see in clubs in tv shows when they need to convince you the characters are somewhere cool, like The Bronze in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, or the Crazy Horse in The Sopranos. They were moody but didn't particularly hold my attention, perfect for a pan away to a brooding Sarah Michelle Gellar after five seconds of exposition.

The trendiness of the venue doubtless had something to do with that impression, but mostly it was  that I generally struggled to single out any individual contribution from the trio of strapped-up attractive females at the front of the stage, bar the singing of course. For the most part, lead, second and bass all blended together to form a wash of sound, and while certainly not unpleasant, it didn't give me much to think about.

The drummer was the clear highlight for me, the part that raised the set into something just about worth watching. In fact he stood out so much that I began to wonder what he was doing there with the other three. At first I figured he must have something going on with the sultry vocalist, but when I noticed how little attention he paid to anything but his own good work, I decided this must be a guy who's in about seven different bands and doesn't care how good they are or aren't or how well they're received, but just motors from session to session each evening and rocks out, minding his own business at the back and yet being the best thing about each one.

As I said, Novella's music left substantial room for my mind to wander.

The same couldn't be said of The Soft Pack. I knew nothing of them before I turned up: my gig buddy kept telling me they were 'just so damn garage', and offered me a money-back guarantee if I didn't like them, and that was good enough for me. But I must not really know what GB means by 'garage', as I turned up expecting to see a fun bunch of guys with good ideas and a lot of energy but not a whole lot of polish, and what I actually got was a very tight unit with very considered material. No problem here picking out the individual components, which included very judicious use of a sax - again not something I'd expected from the description.

This was a band that have clearly put a lot of effort into their music, as evidenced for example by the facial straining of the lead guitarist, who throughout the set looked like he was in the final throes of throttling an elephant. Or maybe a whole herd. They started out well and gradually built to a finale that I think can legally only be described as 'coruscating'.

In opposition to my own impressions of the bands, though, the two guys I was with were actually a little disappointed with The Soft Pack, and much impressed by Novella. So either I don't know what I'm talking about, or it's different strokes for different folks. Or both. You decide.