Young the Giant may be a Grimm Brothers’ story, but it is also the new moniker the band formerly named The Jakes has chosen at the beginning of this year, expressing an apparent desire for eternal youth.
The young five giants from Newport Beach is about to release their first full length album, and I caught them on Sunday night during their residency at the Troubadour this month.
They sure release a positive energy on stage, with Jacob Tilley and Eric Cannata on guitar, Payam Doostzadeh on Bass, and except for Francois Comtois who plays drums, they rarely stay more than 2 seconds at the same place, Sameer Gadhia on vocals constantly frenetically shaking his body and tambourines or calabashes; it is by no means a static band.
Their sound relies a lot on Sameer Gadhia’s distinctive vocals, deep and warm at the same time, which could remind the voice of Bob Marley or even that of Morrissey when he hits the highest notes.
They seems to be the center of a buzz despite their very young age as they have only posted one song on their myspace page, haven’t released their album yet, but have managed to book 5 shows at the Troubadour, plus several other shows in Costa Mesa and San Diego the same month.
Their music is defined as fresh and eclectic on many websites, and if I have truly enjoyed some of their songs, their sound did not hit me as eclectic for the most part. I have found their songs quite uniform and with a certain sameness in the rhythm, except for a few of them, like the great and melodious ‘Cough syrup’ and the powerful ‘My body’ which have some nicely done arrangements. For the most part of the show I could not differentiate their sound of what you can hear on the so-called modern rock radio stations.
They ended the show with ‘My body’ a song that should define them, a true declaration of what they are, young and determined to refuse to follow the rules of the music business, so give me more of these unleashed and distorted bluesy guitars, more of this raw and emancipated energy, this is what we need.