Alive 2008: Times New Viking

A concert review...
Times New Viking
With Fabulous Diamonds and Psychedelic Horseshit
Presented by Part Time Punks
The Echo, Sunday, June 15, 2008

We got to the venue just in time to hear that we should've gotten there early enough for Fabulous Diamonds, especially given the initially low turn-out. Times New Viking referenced follow-up Psychedelic Horseshit as their "best friends in the world," and they were pretty good--I was particularly digging the drum-heavy sound. I have to say, though, that the best thing about Psychedelic Horseshit was their professionalism: they demanded good sound quality, something generally necessary at the Echo, and took the time and effort to get it right.

Times New Viking not so much. Maybe they intended this--bad mixing is a vital part of their sound--but singer/drummer Adam Elliott's vocals were mixed at ear-bleedingly high levels, an especially odd choice given that the same did not apply for the band's other vocalist (and keyboardist) Beth Murphy, whose mic noise was just pleasantly muddled. It's one thing for the guitar or the drums to be turned way up, but the ear is really not designed to hear dissonant human vocals so loudly, and it cries out in pain at the prospect of something that might deafen it to those critical frequencies. Short story: wear earplugs.

Otherwise, their live sound was an improvement over the muddled Rip It Off, keeping all the feedback--essential in making their dissonant melodies work--without getting totally lost in it. Even though their seeming lack of a set list led to a lot of dead time of debating about which songs to play, even as they apparently forgot how to play a song here and there, even though Adam Elliott seemed on the verge of a heart attack throughout the whole set, even though the vocal volume was majorly irritating, and even though they couldn't have been on for much longer than half an hour, it was a really fun show. Times New Viking have a great sound and a good live presence, and it's no wonder they got signed to Matador. Hopefully they'll land a producer who knows how to make the noise a little more effective for their next batch of songs, and hopefully Elliott will tweak the sound from his mic a little more for the rest of their just-begun North American tour. I sound old, but really it was a one of the better concerts I've been to in a while.

8/10

Also: The show was presented by Part Times Punks, which I mention only because it was that much more fun. The between-set music was way more interesting than usual venue fare, and it was really fun to see the bands competing with the audio-less video of Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend being projected above the stage.
I didn't take pictures, but it was something like this.