Advantage: new download
Posted by jamie on Sep 29, 2010
Advantage have out their most recent single, the double-A side The Beat (Get Up) and Wait, Is This Love? up as a download on their bandcamp page.
Advantage: tour being booked..
Posted by jamie on Aug 12, 2010
Advantage are booking a September / October tour: “all will be revealed soon”, says Willis, mysteriously. Having won a load of cash in Prague, the guys are also ready to record again. Watch this space..
Advantage: funny bits
Posted by jamie on Jul 29, 2010
Some enjoyable and amusing bits from brass rockers Advantage.
Sam from the band recorded this version of their song The Fear. In its own way, it is, of course, thoroughly enjoyable.
There’s a quite bonkers interview with Advantage published here on their blog. It’s translated into English from an article by the Czech music site Superbeat. The whole piece is published in all its glory on their site: if you can read Czech, have a look here.
Advantage: new single
Posted by chips on Apr 7, 2010
Advantage’s new single The Beat (Get Up!) is getting play here. It’ll be replayed at 1pm on Saturday. The single is released on 2nd May.
JB Conspiracy: Underworld headline show
Posted by jamie on Mar 31, 2010
This one sort of sneaked up on all of us: The JB Conspiracy will headline Camden’s Underworld on Saturday. Support comes from Over and Out and Advantage.
Doors are at 19:00.
Jaya the Cat, Advantage, the Apostates
Posted by jamie on Mar 8, 2010
Jaya the Cat, Advantage, the Apostates
Underworld, Camden, London
26th February 2010.
Jamie
A dosey lie-in that almost made me late this morning, and was responsible for my friend Hassan’s hoodie getting left neatly folded on my bedroom floor instead of in my backpack and on its way to the Underworld was the payback for a mad week and one too many late nights. The bleariness, I should emphasise, did happen early in the morning: I did have to rush here straight from work. As with a lot if Underworld shows I’ve seen recently, the bill here was pretty killer and started early. The last bit of hustle, from Camden Road station past the Grand Union and over the bridge, was achieved with a banana in my shorts pocket tap-tap-tapping away at he back of my knee. Don’t know how it got there, but it was tasty and had to be gone before we could go in. Three big, greedy bites saw to that and in we went just after doors.
Clay Pigeon sadly didn’t show as Az wasn’t well, so there was some loitering around in the half-dark before the Apostates kicked the night off with a dirty, rough-and-ready set of ska-punk. They’re a three-piece, without horns, if you haven’t seen them, and play a gleefully shambolic take on the whole thing, with big fat basslines and the greasy, boozy, rock n’ roll feel to it. It’s whispered in my ear that the girl next to us has seen them twice before and they were drunk both times. Tonight they’re not, just lovably nonchalant, almost not fussed, about being on stage, as they rock out around a short, sweet set of riff-heavy music that’s basically punk with upstrokes. They’re a good band to let your hair down to and good fun for a party and gone, soon after, with a growing crowd still rocking n its heels as what passes for lights get turned up one click above off.
Advantage are a different concept altogether. They’re calling what they do “brass rock” to differentiate themselves from the more conventional punk/ska sound, and, in fairness, to try and squash what they do in to that would be unnecessarily reductive. There’s ska and punk in their sound but there’s a lot more besides – it’s constantly evolving in to a bigger, more powerful beast. It’s like epic rock, and it has horns. Needless to say, it’s superb. I love these guys, and they absolutely kick it when they play live.
With so much incorporated in to their sound, it’s impressive that so much of what Advantage are about can be crammed in to a quick set. It’s essentially a hit and run on the ears and bodies that have come to experience the band: they get on, unleash that ever growing, ever evolving sound and then, all of a sudden, they’re done. Bang. In that, though, they really do demonstrate what they’re about: it’s impressive how much can be crowbarred in.
So far in their short life the guys have released two three-track EPs, and there’s another record expected soon. All three are represented tonight. The fact that they open and close with new tracks (Something to Say and The Beat) is testament to the almost restless extent of their creativity. They never seem to be satisfied, and are always adding and tinkering with their sound. There always seems to be more and more that they can and will do with their music, and it’s made them really exciting to follow. The Fear and Wait are highlights, and newie Time and Place is a great song too: plenty of movement considering it’s brand new.
Oh, and they’ll rock you out in concert too. As I’ve said, it’s pretty short and sweet, but the room is moving throughout, new and (relatively speaking) older tracks go down a storm. A bouncing, bobbing throng of bodies singing the words back, even to stuff that’s not been released. The place is full of joy, and it’s getting warmer and warmer. Both of these, honestly, you can feel in the air. Throw in the sheer power behind Advantage’s sound and you’ve got a really intense set that should, were there any justice, have lasted longer. All the melodies were in there, but the riffs were so big and fat you could feel them. It’s a really impressive, and really enjoyable set.
Jaya the Cat headline. By now my excitement at seeing them for the first time is making me pretty giddy, and a jumping belly full of rum and cider can’t be helping. In the hot, dark little room, the five members of Jaya the Cat step out and get a really rapturous response. They then proceed to deliver one of the most accomplished performances, and one of the most enjoyable sets, that you could see. Not just right now, I mean this is right up there. Jaya the Cat effortlessly hold the room, and have so much going for them you can’t fail to enjoy yourself watching them. Their sound, at times, is easygoing soulful reggae and ska, and at others it’s closer to the straight-up punk rock band that they were when they first got together. Throughout the night, they stop off at most places in between and keep the Underworld bouncing, shouting, and waving all of its fists in the air. Where that’s not appropriate, you just can’t resist getting your groove on. You know, all booty-shaking and that. There’s so much soul in those tunes that it’s sexy, and so much rhythm, so much tune, that you can’t stop dancing. It’s absolutely wonderful.
There are a few brief exchanges with the crowd, but not much to speak of: it’s basically a case of showing up and getting on with the songs, but that’s no bad thing. Jaya the Cat have got the tunes, and you’d want them to squash in as many as they can.
Latest record More Late Night Transmissions features heavily: Thank You Reggae, Hello Hangover and Pass the Ammunition, in their different ways, are gems. Blur, Nightbus and Mistake also feature alongside oldies like Cog in the Wheel and the ominous Final Solution in a night where everything is just right: whatever they do just works. Exhausted as we were (and I played a football match at lunchtime too, you know), you can’t help yourself but move to these guys. Especially on this form. Exhausted, eventually, we found ourselves in an awkward position: my legs were having a dilemma on their own. It’s only halfway through the set but they couldn’t dance any more. But then they couldn’t stop. What do you do?
It’s helpful, for that reason, when the pace does slow down a little. Throughout the set the guys shift through various speeds. What was funny was how the slower it got, the more people in the room were getting it on. Avoiding the heat, and looking for some skanking room, we’d skulked over to the back by the railing. Watching the whole crowd, to a smooth reggae tune with loads of bass and an extra gravely Geoff vocal, people were pulling all around us. Fair play to them, I guess. I did say it was sexy.
The night comes to a close with Jaya the Cat at full speed, and a room full of tired legs and unhappy shins summon up their last dregs of energy to throw some tired bodies around the floor one last time. Breathless by the end, we’re pretty much shunted out through the side stairs for the club night to start. The street’s full of yelling, screaming and police vans: a total contrast to the atmosphere just a few stairs behind us, and it’s freezing up here. That tight little knot of people who’ve just met and become best friends disappears in every direction. Our crew opted to shiver upstairs in a chip shop and watch police vans struggle to park. Dizzy from what we’d just witnessed, very little of what’s going on gets taken in. I basically floated home.
Advantage: Future Echoes
Posted by jamie on Jan 10, 2010
Advantage
Future Echoes EP
Self-released
Jamie : 6th January 2010
[Sorry, again, that this has taken so long to publish. Bah.]
It can’t be easy to follow up on a record like Advantage’s eponymous debut EP, which landed on my doormat last year and instantly commanded attention and affection. The word “different” gets bandied around almost as much as talk of things that claim to be bandied around a lot that aren’t bandied around at all by folk who regularly bandy with the best of them, but that’s for another story. When they strode purposefully into the CD players and the hearts of a loving nation in 2009, Advantage were most definitely different. But how to follow that? Well..
Hot on the heels of that incredible first little disc, Future Echoes takes what Advantage were already doing and does it better. This one goes down just as well as the first, and if anything, musically it’s even better.
The three songs on this record again demonstrate Advantage’s startling development as musicians and increasingly innovative and ambitious approach to songwriting. Everything’s refreshingly new about the music here, it’s ambitiously epic, again, with horn riffs ducking in and out of the guitar parts. Perhaps it’s the sheer size and strength in Advantage’s music that makes these arrangements a necessity: there are six of them, but with the amount of different vocal, string and brass parts here, it must take some shuffling around to get them all in. The classic joke about elephants in a mini seems relevant here somehow. However it’s happened, though, the extra edge that vocal and horn harmonies have given to their second set of songs have really helped to improve Advantage’s sound as so many hooks battle for attention. It’s actually pretty exhilarating sitting here with the title track, Future Echoes playing in Media Player. As happened on their first record, Future Echoes the song build up slowly, in layers, opening with just a lead guitar part and growing step by step before finally exploding in to a soaring, gloriously epic rock chorus. It’s very much Advantage as we grew to love them through their first record, but somehow, bigger. This track goes down a treat: the vocals fading out over a horn refrain just at the end of the song is particularly impressive as is the song’s initial climb, backed by increasingly powerful guitar parts to that original chorus. The first time you hear that it’ll pin you right back in your seat, trust me. It’s surely destined to be a real highlight of watching the band in concert (it’s a while since I’ve watched them play live. Must fix that.)
Something to Say is similarly powerful and just as impressive. It brings the horn section in earlier and is a catchier number, closer in composition to a pop song. Its chorus, “we will have the advantage” is peppered with gang vocals of “hey” that will have a lot of pits chanting and bouncing along. Again, midway through, the song drops out and sinisterly, tantalisingly sneaks back up on you before running off in to a massive guitar solo and finally stomping back in to that big, chant-along chorus. It’s perfect.
The Fear is the last song on the CD and the first to open with a brass hook, and the vocal parts much earlier as well. The sound here is, at times, closer to a more traditional pop-punk song, but, again, the song itself is very different. The dual vocals in its chorus, and the points where vocal duets with the brass section and then back in to vocal harmony is charming. The horns then lead the second verse in and, at times here, with the addition a tiny little harmony that’s absolutely lush, and, listened to quietly on your own in your room, will make you go all mushy on the inside and then quickly slaps in to one last little chorus, all toot-toot on the horns and then skips away, leaving you on your own feeling all happy and wanting to hug something, is the one part of this disc with the most uplifting elements of vintage pop songwriting. It’s actually lovely in a sort of soft way and a teensy bit emotional. When you’re on your own. Against the barrier that’ll be the bit when you grab your breath back and try and find your shoe. And then it’s gone, and with it the whole CD stops. It’s lovely, and it’s got everything you need in a small set of great songs. It’s a gem.
2010: Advantage
Posted by chips on Jan 2, 2010
We’ll probably stop writing “2010″ at the start of posts soon, but for now we’re still announcing new year ambitions.
Advantage will play their new single live for the first time at Varisty in Wolverhampton on Friday 15th January. See it on facebok here.
Advantage: need for new agents
Posted by jamie on Nov 29, 2009
Advantage: acoustic track
Posted by jamie on Nov 17, 2009
Advantage have posted an acoustic version of new track The Fear on their facebook. The track is one of three on their new EP “Future Echoes” - which we’ll be reviewing pronto.
