To Oran Mor for an album launch – BM saw The Sunshine Social playing unbilled (as “live music”) after the very wonderful Fast Product-related “post punk in Edinburgh” documentary which had a showing at BM’s local venue The Glad Cafe last year. The post punks buggered off pronto (presumably for an early night before returning to their morning’s postie duties) (oh crumbs, Ed, is that right, BM thought the whole “post” punk thing was just posties that liked punk, yer Vic Godard and the like, ach another illusion busted…) Anyway, there were about four people there along with the tech crew and that was it. The music that night was ok, sometimes better than that, but tonight in the Oran Mor basement “venue” was confirmation of a gigantic step forward that indicates they may be about to break onto some bigger stages…
Tonight was their album launch (physical copies of the rather colourful disc were available) and there was a definite buzz in the air, or was that the piper outside, hired for some nonsense £20K wedding (don’t do it kids), who threatened at times to “take down” the support acts but had piped off by about 9 (nothing against pipers, he was quite good actually but you try getting that sensitive acoustic number when within 500 yards of one).
BM missed all but the last song of first support act Sink Ships but they did sound good…
Second support The Great Albatross had some very good hooks, acoustic guitar exploding into some heavy grunge at times, fighting with the noise from the bar, ones to watch…
Headliners TSS have clearly been working very hard in the last few months to get the album down and released and this gig was a big release of emotion for the band, with fans, WAGs, grannies etc. all in attendance.
They are a six-piece, all with very good musical skills, plus a vision, somewhere between party, letdown and epic. BM won’t count down all members but there were a lot of instruments and talent up there, swapping roles and gear at times, but basically one singer with guitar, two other guitar players, keyboards, bass and drums. There are some members who fool about onstage more than others – let’s just say that – but it provides for some hilarious moments.
They can be ponderous to the point of prog at times, but mixed with euphoric breakdowns and everyone on the drums moments, they can get away with it. There are xylophone riffs, jit guitar riffs, acoustic-led riffs, vocal riffs and just lots of riffs! Lyrics are mainly about lost love, with childhood memories featuring heavily… mental illness and weird dreams also get a look-in…
These are six young guys, with individually and collectively some amount of charisma, and they feed off the audience. There were singalongs, banter, poignant moments, the lot. They played the new album ‘Return to Dust’ right though and then some more songs, plus an encore. There were some sublime moments, with standout songs for BM being ‘Men at Work’ (“the colour of your underwear reminds me of a time when we led simpler lives”) and ‘Have to Laugh’.
It would be easy to slot this lot into the Frabbit continuum of emotional Scotch rockers but they have a style, look and character all of their own and are certainly not copyists. They relish every note and are very appreciative of an audience which by the end was truly wowed.
SSS 2016 – looking like a good year.