Review: Wintersleep

Think great Canadian songwriters and you wouldn't come up far short of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell (the Alanis Morissette school of screeching doesn't count - come to think of it, if you took the B off Bryan Adams you'd have another great, but he'd be from south of the border!) Latterly the alternative Canadian scene has launched the celebrated Arcade Fire onto the international stage, while Toronto collective Broken Social Scene have exported their sprawling rock salvation to far-off shores.
 
Now come Wintersleep, the latest Canucks to reach out across the Atlantic, stirring from the slumberland of coastal Nova Scotia where sea fog smothers the sunlight every other day of the year. One of nine brothers and a sister, chief songwriter Paul Murphy and his four-piece band come to the UK off the back of a burgeoning reputation accelerated by their 2008 Juno Award for best band - Canada's equivalent of the Grammys or the Brits.
 
Broadly, it's indie rock, but with the promise somewhere down the line of reaching out to a wider audience. It's moody, widescreen guitar music with occasional softer inclinations; think perhaps REM, Editors, although on initial listens my mind was drawn to two British bands of yore who bombed spectacularly. Manchester's Witness happen to be lodged two stops down on my ipod from Wintersleep, moody Mancunians of the late 90's who deserved better than being ignored. Likewise Oxford's Goldrush quickly sank without trace; some of Wintersleep's more reflective, pastoral moments bring them to mind here. But that's where the comparisons stop; in contrast to those two bands the Canadians look like making their mark, regularly playing to 1,000 plus crowds back home and drawing an admiring/inquisitive crowd to one of London's more intimate venues, the trendy Hoxton Bar to the east of the City.

On stage, though, Wintersleep don't yet match the potential of their latest record 'Welcome To The Night Sky'. It's all pretty much note perfect, but it's largely routine indie fare, lacking the spark that marks out the best of the genre. Maybe it's in the frontman - Paul Murphy lacks the charisma of a Michael Stipe or even a Tom Smith whose OTT posturing brings the Editors' standard indie to life on stage. Still, it's early days for them. I can remember seeing Coldplay back in the very early days - Glastonbury '99 around the time of their first single 'Shiver' and then a few months later in London. Chris Martin back then was shy, staid, and frankly, as dull as ditchwater. He learned the live lessons fast.
 
There's an odd start to the set, almost as mystifying as the opener's title itself 'Miasmal Smoke and the Yellow Bellied Freaks', an eight minute opus that starts off a bit 'Mogwai' then breaks into some 'Yes'-style prog vocals before racing off into a frantic finale where guitars race synth at breakneck speed through to the finish. It sounds more like a closer than an opener, as it is on the record.
 
The rest follows a more familiar route. Excellent recent single 'Archaeologists' draws recognition and appreciation from the crowd from its first notes, as does its infectious, rocky companion 'Oblivion'. But best of all is the moment Murphy swaps electric for acoustic guitar and leads into folky singalong 'Weighty Ghost'. It sounds like a bridge to somewhere new, and suggests that this indie quartet from the Canadian backwaters could yet sail into the mainstream in future years.
 
Review by Chris Skudder, March 2009 - tour dates on the next page