Customer Reviews

Love the Cup

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Stripped-down rock'n'roll brimming with celtic rage. This disc is worth it just for "La Lune" -- the mandolin tinkles eerily over slow-burn call-and-answer vocals, relentless drum and bass, and sparing, not-quite-tuned guitar. Primal inspiring stuff. Go see them live as soon as you can, too; they're currently touring with Franz Ferdinand, which makes for a nice double bill of pub fury and dance hall goofiness.

Sometimes less is more. Sons and Daughters, a quartet of experienced Scots (including two former members of Arab Strap) are expected to put out a full-length CD in 2005, but the band will have a tough time topping this seven-song, 25-minute debut disc. Putting a country twist on the garage-rock minimalism of the White Stripes, Sons and Daughters gives you a sense of what might have happened if Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash had recorded an album after spending a few months listening to nothing but PJ Harvey CDs.

Sons and Daughters have performed with some pretty big names in indie rock, with Decemberists, the Fiery Furnaces and fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand. What do these bands have in common? Aside from sharing a nationality with Franz Ferdinand.... absolutely nothing.

This energetic Scottish band debuted with "Love the Cup," which let the world have a taste of their music, with the energy of a volcanic garage band and the infectious sound of Celtic folk gone punk. There really isn't any other band with a comparable sound.

It kicks off with a dancing drum beat, joined by a droning guitar and sinuous female vocals. "Fight" levels out into a sort of bombastic folk that is rough, dancey and intense, enough that getting into it is exhausting. Yes, as you can guess, it's about a fight. But somehow it never sounded so appealing.

They quiet down a bit from there on, but that simmering sound is always about ready to erupt. No, "Johnny Cash" sounds nothing like the late man in black's work, and it doesn't focus on him, but it is the peak of this album -- tightly played, with razor-sharp guitars and explosive singing by Scott Paterson.

A few songs even reflect the Celtic folk roots of this band, with soft acoustic guitar, mandolin and a tambourine. Guitarist/singer Adele Bethel sounds softer and more relaxed in these songs. Then it's back to the bluesy, folky rock'n'roll, whisky-soaked and ready to throw a punch.

It's a long EP, and well-worth buying for the price tag it has, since every song here is worth listening to. "Love the Cup" has no fillers, no cutesiness, no pretensions, no trends, and no slick appeals for radioplay. It's just a rough, raw slice of rock'n'roll.

Anyone who has heard Celtic folk will recognize the jiggy rhythms that make you want to dance, with handclaps, sharp drums and fast riffs. But this is not cheery music, with its sparsely-worded lyrics about fighting, death and melancholy. It's ominous and rough, and it makes you feel that way even as you tap your feet to it.

This is also one of those bands that harmonizes male and female vocals. Bethel is paired with Paterson, who usually does backing harmony. He does lead in one song, with Bethel bursting in in the middle. And harmonization becomes dizzying as they sing "You're in my blood/blood/my blood," their voices interplaying beautifully.

Anyone who loves raw, pure rock'n'roll will be bowled over by the debut EP for Sons and Daughters. "Love the Cup"? Oh yeah, lads and lasses.

What a great EP by this band from the land of Franz Ferdinand. Although they sound nothing like them, Sons and Daughters gained some notoreity as their opening act on parts of FF's recent tour. I must warn you that contrary to others' remarks, Sons and Daughters sound nothing like White Stripes. They are actually doing a very faithful tribute to Th Faith Healers UK and maybe there is a little early Verbena, as they are somewhat countrified. Great EP, worth the gamble, the kind of cd that you play again as soon as it's over.

I first found out about this band when I saw them open for Franz Ferdinand. The show was an incredible display of cathartic energy mingled with restrained order. The seven song EP is the same. Every song is perfect. Sons and Daughters' trick is combining Scottish/American folk with minimal punk techniques, the songs also have a catchy pop appeal while certainly sounding original. There are simply no bands that sound like the S&D. The mandolins along with male and female vocals make for a fresh sound in today's indie music world.

A truly potent album which captures the ferocity of a ten-man drunken pub brawl. Buyers may also like the Republic of Loose album "This Is the Tomb of the Juice". Irish rather than Scottish (although you would swear S&D came from Ireland anyway), they are more funky and just as raucous. Perfect drunken debauchery for your ears!

Mix the following:

One part resurrected disco beat.
Two parts Scottish vocals (one male and one female).
Two parts Indie rock (with significant influences from the White Stripes and is that Pink Floyd I can hear?)
One part folk rock.
One part tamborine.

And add a generous portion of Rocking Awesome!

These lads and lasses from the north of the British Isles are just really really good, and worth more than a casual listen.

I hate reading glowing reviews about a band using "American folk traditions" and the like. It makes me think I'm in for some gritty, dark, backwoods harmonies. Instead, this is an overly slick, generic indie hipster concoction. Yawn.

I think it began with Fleetwood Mac. Something about the joined voices of a male and a female that is simply the two voices singing together in harmony. This is opposed to a duet, which I don't care for, because it's typically the two voices taking turns rather than singing together. But there's something more to it, too. Most duets are artificial, created in the imaginations of the marketing department rather than the sweat of constant touring and clubbing. To give examples, what I like is the sound of Fleetwood Mac or X or The Reivers (to establish my Austin, TX cred there) as opposed to Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand or Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross. As soon as I publish this, I'm sure someone will come up with a duet pair that I do like, but there's always an exception.

I first saw and heard Sons and Daughters on a music video that came with my Paste Magazine. From the first notes of "Johnny Cash," my ears perked up. This was something different. A simple repeating guitar part and a four piece band equally men and women. Then the man began singing in this deep voice, somewhat even resident of the man referenced in the title. And then she came in, like Exene Cervenka joining John Doe at the mic, a blast of raw female shrieking harmony that just unglued me. The video matched the rawness of the music, as a simple concert in front of a rough crowd of 30 or so deginerated into a bar fight as filmed by the Wachowski brothers in stop-motion time. In the video, the instruments start smoking and if there was a better metaphor for their sound, I can't think of it. This was punk music for the new millenium, and I had just found the band that had inherited the mantle of X, my favorite band from the late 80s (just as Fleetwood Mac had been my favorite band before them). The two lead vocalists are Scott Paterson and Adele Bethel, with their fellow bandmembers David Gow (whoops) and Ailidh Lennon (hollers). Oh, and if you couldn't tell, they're from Scotland.

I couldn't find a copy of "Johnny Cash" on CD immediately, but as soon as I found it, I picked up their first album, The Repulsion Box (on which I will comment some day). But in my mind, I always associated Sons and Daughters with that early video and I was determined to find the debut EP that it was drawn from. That EP is Love the Cup.

Not every song on Love the Cup is like "Johnny Cash," but every song is exactly the thing I was looking for in a rock song. "Fight" is probably the closest (unsurprising, given the video interpreation of the earlier song), but it adds in a call and response between the two leads for the chorus that makes it different enough to stand out. Most of the other songs are a little slower ("Blood," "Broken Bones"--hmm, sense a trend in the song names?), but all of them have a similar drive--a steady 4/4 drum beat from David Gow that just impels the songs on.

I can't tell you anything about what the lyrics mean, because these are songs that I feel more than I actively engage my intellect with. Part of that is that Adele and Scott sing with accents, which make deciphering the lyrics a little more difficult, but for the most part, it's because I'm too busy drowning in the sound that they make.

The final song on this EP is entitled "Awkward Duet," and maybe that's the difference between the sound that I like and the type I don't. The emphasis in this EP on their live sound echoes the cyclical movement in rock music between the extremely produced and sincere amateurishness. Sons and Daughters have found the perfect ratio between these two for me, and I anxiously await a new album as well as a return to the U.S. for a tour (this year, they've only been to New York).

Sons and Daughters have performed with some pretty big names in indie rock, with Decemberists, the Fiery Furnaces and fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand. What do these bands have in common? Aside from sharing a nationality with Franz Ferdinand.... absolutely nothing.

This energetic Scottish band debuted with "Love the Cup," which let the world have a taste of their music, with the energy of a volcanic garage band and the infectious sound of Celtic folk gone punk. There really isn't any other band with a comparable sound.

It kicks off with a dancing drum beat, joined by a droning guitar and sinuous female vocals. "Fight" levels out into a sort of bombastic folk that is rough, dancey and intense, enough that getting into it is exhausting. Yes, as you can guess, it's about a fight. But somehow it never sounded so appealing.

They quiet down a bit from there on, but that simmering sound is always about ready to erupt. No, "Johnny Cash" sounds nothing like the late man in black's work, and it doesn't focus on him, but it is the peak of this album -- tightly played, with razor-sharp guitars and explosive singing by Scott Paterson.

A few songs even reflect the Celtic folk roots of this band, with soft acoustic guitar, mandolin and a tambourine. Guitarist/singer Adele Bethel sounds softer and more relaxed in these songs. Then it's back to the bluesy, folky rock'n'roll, whisky-soaked and ready to throw a punch.

It's a long EP, and well-worth buying for the price tag it has, since every song here is worth listening to. "Love the Cup" has no fillers, no cutesiness, no pretensions, no trends, and no slick appeals for radioplay. It's just a rough, raw slice of rock'n'roll.

Anyone who has heard Celtic folk will recognize the jiggy rhythms that make you want to dance, with handclaps, sharp drums and fast riffs. But this is not cheery music, with its sparsely-worded lyrics about fighting, death and melancholy. It's ominous and rough, and it makes you feel that way even as you tap your feet to it.

This is also one of those bands that harmonizes male and female vocals. Bethel is paired with Paterson, who usually does backing harmony. He does lead in one song, with Bethel bursting in in the middle. And harmonization becomes dizzying as they sing "You're in my blood/blood/my blood," their voices interplaying beautifully.

Anyone who loves raw, pure rock'n'roll will be bowled over by the debut EP for Sons and Daughters. "Love the Cup"? Oh yeah, lads and lasses.