Review Summary: This album is labeled as Shoegaze, but goes much wider in its scope
I don’t know how many people venture into the press release pages here on SputnikMusic, but it is as with anywhere else when the PR people promote their stuff - 90 percent of the time it is the stuff you don’t care about and once in a while you run into something that shows listening promise.
Greek band Tango With Lions was certainly an unknown quantity personally, but the title track their label posted from their new, third album, The Light, showed some promising, interesting touches. Listening to the album itself, proved that the search was worthwhile.
Another thing the PR men have to do is categorize the music they are representing, and quite often I don’t end them with that part of their job. Sometimes the music is quite easy to categorize, and bam, the job is done! But what do you do with a band like Tango With Tigers and the music their leading composer and voice Kat Papachristou comes up with?
Shoegaze? An overused term that would certainly be over-restricting. Indie-folk, slowcore? Sure, maybe, but then a bit more too. Living and working in a place that is not exactly considered as a key rock music center gives you the liberty and an open mind to combine the sounds and influences coming from almost anywhere, and that is exactly what Kat and the band do.
You get the tinges of Slowdive/Cocteau Twins on the opener “Back To One”, Opal and Hope Sandoval on “Proof Of Desire” some great uptempo pop on “Last Thrill”, or the sophisticated sound of a band like The Go-Betweens, on, ehm, “The Go-Betweens”, one of the best tracks on the album. But to everything Tango With Lions add yet another personal touch, usually with some quite intricate arrangements (for example, harp and brass on “Last Thrill”).
The lyrics can often be a problem with a non-English band singing in English, but on the evidence here, Kat overcomes that with ease: “Given the time you had /it’s all gone well or terribly wrong/Taking the toll is always as all that ends can ever bring /Wearing a stare/
To stare at the wildest flame I’ve known /so I can breathe into this /or breathe out of us” (“The Light”).
All in all, a very intriguing release, worthy of attention.
