An Albatross + Gil Mantera’s Party Dream @ Ottobar, 8/21/06
August 22nd, 2006 by A.D.D.There was a bit of an odd dynamic to the night watching Gil and Donny open for An Albatross. Gil and Donny preprogram a lot of their stuff so they can dance to the tunes, play their instruments now and then, and over emote in a crowd pleasing way. They may not be bad musicians, but they aren’t really pushing themselves to the limits of their abilities, and if they are, it’s best we not know. Nonetheless, they are in their own way succesful, and i dare say they have a growing following. I enjoyed their set very much, and they drew a nice round of applause as they reluctantly left the stage when their time was up.
An Albatross is a band of excellent musicians, pushing themselves to (what was at one point) the limit of their abilities. This should be good, but it just didn’t work for me. They had the Zorn/Naked City thrash with time changes thing, and it was brilliant in spurts, but couldn’t maintain my interest. Pushing a drummer to his limits seems to be one and the same with songs that change tempos over and over and over again, and there are enough bands doing it that it must be good, but it isn’t my thing.
With tracks like (i think i’ve got this right) I am the Laser Viking, it’s hard to say what is so upsetting to them. For a band like Melt Banana (played over the sound system to lead into their set) this is obscured by the language barrier, but An Albatross gets no free pass on that one.
But i digress, the evening to me was the victory of max-ing your limited skills over max-ing your unlimited skills. Sometimes having less talent is a virtue.