The launch party for the new album ‘Of The Night’ from Cambridge rockers Bouquet Of Dead Crows. First band on were Londoners Cherry White, with some down and earthy blues-rock, vocalist Donata Sounds belting them out over some tight backing from a fluent rock trio, notable especially for some John Entwistle bass styling and some good contrasts of light and shade.

Gavin Chappell-Bates brought his sensitive tunes to the stage flanked by two microphones and a bank of pedals to facilitate an elaborate level of looping creating a multi-layered texture of sound, all from the acoustic guitar, voice and simple percussion. Impressive indeed. There is a warm and nostalgic feel to his songs, including recent singles ’95’ and ‘We Are The Ones’.

An exuberant performance from Cambridge stalwarts The Scissors impressed the growing audience, their sharp pop songs a riot of colourful Hammond organ flavoured keyboards, edgy guitar, crescendos of drums and punching bass, with some interesting lyrical twists. Hopefully a new CD is due soon, to include the dark blues of ‘Why Don’t You Cry?’ currently one of the standout songs in their live set.

As the stage filled with smoke the headliners arrived to a welcoming crowd. Opening with the slowly building ‘Everything Is Temporary’ then into the heavier delights of ‘Epicentre’ and blasting single ‘Just A Little More’, it is clear that the continual gigging and recording of these songs is paying off with a finely honed instrumental unity, topped with Antoinette Cooper’s confident vocals.
The dark riff of ‘Drownout’ pairs well with the sadness of ‘Without You’, ‘Fundamental Flaw Of Solitude’ sets us up nicely for the epic opus ‘Endless’ (its not a happy lyric, ‘over and over I’m drowning in the flames’) with one of the best instrumental work-outs of the evening. Time for a quick encore of early track ‘Implode/Explode’ (‘We should be killing time, but you’re killing me..’) then it was the end of the party.

Bouquet Of Dead Crows should be very proud of this album (with its striking design by Stewart Harris of The Scissors and triple gatefold sleeve..!) and it translates brilliantly to a live environment like the Portland, or of course to a larger venue…

http://www.bouquetofdeadcrows.com/
http://thescissors.blogspot.co.uk/
http://gavinchappellbates.com/

Cherry White

Bouquet Of Dead Crows : Of The Night, released November 2015