Skip to content
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Derek
    • Gary
    • Halley/Celeste
    • Paul
    • Ricky
    • Vik
  • Concerts
  • Reviews
    • Albums
    • Venue
    • Movies
    • Year End Reviews
  • Festivals
    • Canadian Music Week
    • Hot Docs
    • North By Northeast
    • Planet in Focus
    • Primavera
    • South By Southwest
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Derek
    • Gary
    • Halley/Celeste
    • Paul
    • Ricky
    • Vik
  • Concerts
  • Reviews
    • Albums
    • Venue
    • Movies
    • Year End Reviews
  • Festivals
    • Canadian Music Week
    • Hot Docs
    • North By Northeast
    • Planet in Focus
    • Primavera
    • South By Southwest
  • Contact Us

Concert Review: The Growlers, January 22, Black Cat

Posted on
24 Jan 2013
by
halley

I generally try to avoid … generalizations but every rule has its exception and so I’m going to go ahead and throw this out there: even the most devoted and open-minded music aficionado has to do an occasional head slap at the genre-labels artists come up with. Think “tunes with a coffee-roasted darkness to them” or “chords that moves the air like glitter on adrenaline” (yes… real examples… I’m not creative enough to make that stuff up). Yes, we love music, but there is a limit to what sound can achieve. With that in mind, I approached The Growlers’ self-described “beach goth” music with a certain amount of hesitation… only to find myself a convert at the end.

The band is, first of all, super competent on stage. They dove right into their set and didn’t stop for air for over an hour. They had some sort of borderline psychedelic/macabre/entertaining video background playing on a screen behind them and a bubble machine. The best thing about the bubble machine, though, was that it was on its last legs, meaning the bubbles only did a half-hearted arc out of the machine before tumbling to destruction on the stage floor. So appropriate for the entire ambience.

The Growlers played a mix of new and old songs (they’re promoting a new album: Hung at Heart) and nailed every one of them. My favorite remains “Graveyard’s Full” but I also really enjoyed the band’s “lasty but nasty” song in their set: “One Million Lovers.”

Definitely worth checking out the record and checking out the band live if they come to a venue near you.

PrevPreviousSong of the Day: Teen Girl Scientist Monthly – Summer Skin
NextConcert Review: Coachella, May 1st-2nd, 2004 [Radiohead, Pixies, The Cure, Kraftwerk, Flaming Lips]Next

SEARCH

FOLLOW US

Facebook Twitter Flickr Foursquare Rss Inbox

THE PAST

Archives

TAGS

Tags
British Music Embassy (10) Canadian Music Fest (11) canadian music week (20) cmf (10) cmw (42) concert (9) el mocambo (9) fringe (26) Great Lake Swimmers (10) guelph (9) horseshoe tavern (23) hot docs (103) jazz (12) Joel Plaskett (10) jukebox the ghost (15) lee's palace (27) marina and the diamonds (10) Massive Attack (10) mod club (12) NXNE (94) of monsters and men (11) Phoenix (15) play reviews (11) Pulp (11) Roskilde Festival (16) rural alberta advantage (10) sharon van etten (10) suede (12) summerworks (34) SXSW (479) SXSW 2022 (11) SXSW 2024 (11) SXSW Online (18) the antlers (11) the cure (9) the national (10) the xx (11) Tokyo Police Club (9) Toronto (25) toronto fringe (14) Toronto Jazz Festival (55) turf (13) tweeview (10) Video (9) zeus (10)
The Panic Manual

We are a collective of individuals bringing you the latest in concert reviews, indie, britpop, Canadian, twee and all sorts of other music, movies, tv and everything else you like. Follow the manual to live a pleasant and fulfilling life.

All rights reserved