XOYO, London
Alister Wright's eyes widen. "I can't believe we sold this place out!" The excitement of the bouncy guitarist and sublime singer of Cloud Control is touching, considering the success the Sydney four-piece have achieved back home. Their debut album, Bliss Release, won the Australian Music prize, down under's answer to the Mercury, yet Cloud Control take to the stage with a palatable hunger to do well.
Meditation Song #2 (Why, Oh Why) bursts into scorching life. Its gently epic psych-folk charms splinter into shards of 60s garage, sending Wright and bass player Jeremy Kelshaw lurching back and forth like Status Quo's Rossi and Parfitt; Heidi Lenffer furiously shakes her long, black hair over her red keyboard, the image of Cher when she still loved Sonny.
It is the band's vocals, though, that set them apart from big-vista pop contemporaries such as Temper Trap. Blending the sunshine of the Mamas and the Papas with Jefferson Airplane's boy-girl blues, Cloud Control produce stunning three- and four-part harmonies. Wright and Lenffer swoon and sigh among the stinging guitar of Death Cloud and coo through the cool breeze of Just for Now. "Never thought we'd come this far," sings Wright presciently.
"We don't play this song very often," says Kelshaw of Into the Line, yet the whirlpool of crashing guitars and ethereal vocals set against a truculent rhythm raises the question why. It is the tribal-influenced, almost warlike pop of Gold Canary and There's Nothing in the Water We Can't Fight, however, that sends band and fans into a frenzy of joyful dancing, and suggests Wright may soon have to get used to selling out much bigger venues.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/18/cloud-control-review
BBC1 Dennis Bergkamg United Kingdom Banks and building societies Disability Electronic music
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