Gig: The Diableros

The Diableros / Planet Creature

The Boat. Friday, October 16, 2009.

Headed down to The Boat for a rather highly-anticipated evening — a release party for The Diableros' new EP Old Story, Fresh Road.¹ The band was particularly impressive last time I saw 'em, end of May at the Pitter Patter Festival, especially with the new material that they were playing. Definitely now worth celebrating getting those tunes out to the world. It was a busy night around town, with several other worthy gigs from some new and celebrated groups, but a good crowd on hand, skewing a little older, and perhaps valuing consistency over novelty. Not that, like, the members of Diableros are haggard old wrecks or anything, but, y'know.

In a fabulous visual twist, openers Planet Creature took the stage with the members all wearing custom t-shirts bearing a picture of their counterpart in The Diableros. Playing a half-hour of bouncy garage-pop, the band played a similar set to the one I'd seen in September, and my reaction about the same. There's absolutely something there in their slightly shambolic attack, but I had this sense that this band hasn't quite put it all together yet — that something at just a slight angle from what they're doing is going to fall into place with a satisfying "click", and they'll take it to the next level. One element that might help them get there would be to share the vox around more. Although they have some satisfying backing vocal arrangements, there were a few moments where most-usual vocalist Brooke Gagne was pushing things outside her range a bit — perhaps the band might have a go at passing the baton a bit more on leads.² And though the band has a winning demeanour on stage, they still have a momentum-sapping lack of quickness when it comes time to pass the instruments around. But this is all relatively small stuff — and probably the best prescription for most of this is simply to keep playing more shows. With luck, we'll get more chances to see this band grow into their masterpieces.

Listen to a track from this set here.

A nice crowd in place for The Diableros, although they were not wearing custom t-shirts bearing a picture of their counterparts in Planet Creature.³ The band moved right into a one-two punch of the first pair of Old Story tracks. A logical extension of sophomore album Aren't Ready For the Country, the new material contains all the hallmarks of The Diableros' sound, with Ian Jackson's aggressively atmospheric guitar spreading disintegrating shards in competition with Jordan Walsh's organ holding it all together. Gathering momentum, the band made a driving run through "Push it to Monday" which segued straight into EP standout track "Heavy Hands". Working up a sweat, Pete Carmichael had to pause to catch his breath before the band stormed into "Turning Backwards".

The set was capped with "Old Story, Fresh Road", played with a pair of guest saxes on hand, which, combined with the "we'll still have rock 'n roll" sentiments of the lyrics made for the most tightly-bound track in the band's repertoire to the classic rock tradition. After a break, the band closed it out with a trio of oldies. Impressively tight throughout, the five new songs nestled comfortably into the setlist. The crowd was calling for more, put Pete demurred, commenting "those are all the songs we know". The band sounds engaged and eager, so hopefully this lineup can stick it out for a spell and keep generating more new material.

I posted a track from the new EP last time 'round, so this time, you can hear an old track from this set here.

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¹ From what I can gather, there is no CD release planned for the new EP, with only vinyl on sale at the show. It is, however, available online at Zunior, and, for those so inclined, there's so surcharge for downloading the FLAC files.

² During their "encore" — a nearly acapella number (a cover?) tossed off with under-rehearsed enthusiastic vigour — bassist Sofia Silva showed off some pleasing pipes that could have been used more.

³ Although bassist Keith Hamilton was wearing a styling L.A. Kings shirt.