During some of their songs, Said the Whale sounded a little bit like Fleet Foxes on a cocktail of adrenaline and dopamine, as some of their tunes had that hymn-like quality, with vocal harmonies galore and a folk pop sensibility, but plenty of happy guitars, and sing-along-clapping-along choruses.
The Vancouver band was bringing a little bit of Canada with songs that were the outdoor-rural types, talking about big skies, or a baby born during a hurricane, or a guy born in the middle of a mountain top. As a matter of fact, talkative Ben Worcester and Tyler Bancroft (both on guitar and vocals) said they were happy about the very un-Californian-and-very-Canadian weather we were having in Los Angeles, explaining that touring all over the US with this nice weather made them realize how much they were missing Vancouver weather,… you know, the nasty rain! They actually could not stop raving about LA, where the ‘cool kids are’,… do Canadians have a complex vis-à-vis California?
With a real energy on stage, they played an eclectic collection of soft tunes with relaxed harmonies or songs with more upbeat and dynamic rhythms, but many of their numbers were actually both things at the same time, starting quietly and acoustically, and mutating into these dynamic power pop numbers. They've been compared to The Decemberists in the past, and I would not really tell because I have never seen the Decemberists live, but they definitively belong to this same sonic family.
The delicate acoustic shuffle at the beginning of ‘B.C. Orienteering’, a song that morphs into an soaring nostalgia while talking about the wise advise to never travel alone, the almost Shins-esque melody of ‘The Gift of a Black Heart’, the country-esque galloping ambiance of ‘Big Sky’ (a new song sung with an harmonica), the floating beginning of ‘Goodnight Moon’ ending into a wild explosion of joy with the help of a ukulele and the members of the previous band We are the City back on stage, were highlights of their show at the Mint.
Ben Worcester and Tyler Bancroft’s gentle guitar duels, accompanied by Jaycelyn Brown’s keyboard and Nathan Shaw and Spencer Schoening’s rhythm section were building the music, but it was the long-sustained five-part harmonies, completed by powerful chants that was characterizing the most their sonic landscapes.
Said the Whale won the 2011 Juno Award for New Group of the Year (kind of Canada’s equivalent of the Grammys) and have released their second full-length record ‘Islands disappear’ last year; they said during the show that they had recorded a new record this summer (set to be released early 2012) while playing some of their new songs.
They should definitively have forgotten about this inferiority complex, for once,… it was Canada which was bringing some sun in California