The Afterveins performing 'Crazy' (a song by Indian Askin)
Initially I was excited by the opening sounds of the drums and the recording lo-fi hiss which reminded me of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate or Unwound, but was soon disappointed by the rest of the package. It's immediately apparent that the drummer of this band has skills. Unfortunately his skill might outshine his compatriots. The singer is inconsistent as is the musicianship as a whole. The band seems to lose one another from time to time and, for the most part, the guitars are droll and uninteresting. I wouldn't use adjectives like tight or polished to describe their sound. The song has moments of good energy, but it gets lost in a shambolic performance which takes away from the cohesiveness of the track.
Indian Askin performing 'The Trouble' (a song by The Afterveins)
I liked this much better. It had an ominous droney quality that reminded me of the better part of early Doors (before Jim Morrison became bloated and thought he was the Messiah) peppered with some simple drums and a distanced backing vocal that I think complimented the track nicely and gave it a subtleness that the song called for. The singer's growl can be a bit overdone and corny at times, but overall I think the performance was solid.
Both these tracks suffer a little on the lyrical content so you do best if you don't listen too closely for meaning. Overt, melodramatic & hackneyed rhyme like "she liked the rain, she liked the rain, and she liked the pain" should have ended up on the editing floor or rolled up in the ball of looseleaf it was written on and hidden under the garbage of last nights dinner so no one would ever have to experience it.
The Afterveins + Indian Askin performing 'Radio Golf'
It seems that for these two bands the whole is greater that the sum of their parts. The sounds somehow work really well together. Thick and lush harkening to Brain Jonestown Massacre and all the garage psychedelic bands they were trying to imitate. Though I am not usually one much for jams, I thought these two bands were able to communicate well and bring the track down and give it space to breathe without falling victim to the usual 'everyone playing incongruous solos over everyone else' type messes that jams can become. Perhaps Amsterdam and Rotterdam can put aside their differences and join hands and walk off into a psychedelic sunset together?