They’ve been around for years, but it is only recently, since their latest single “Save Me” became the theme song for the new WB show “Smallville,” that their third, most focused and disciplined album, The Golden Hum turned Remy Zero — a former one hit wonder band — into a respected up and comer.
The Birmingham, Ala. based quintet, featuring the immensely confident vocalist Cinjun Tate, guitarist Jeffrey Cain, bassist Gregory Slay and Shelby Tate on guitar, keyboards and vocals, has become the protégé of brit-pop gods Travis ever since they began touring with them prior to The Golden Hum’s release last year.
The show at the Paradise last Friday night rounded off the final leg of Remy Zero’s headlining tour that began earlier in March. The Opener, Boston’s The Skating Club, was a shy trip through indie-pop hooks and swirling guitars that give emo a good name for once. Singer/guitarist Audrey Anderson, along with bassist/keyboardist Colin Rhinesmith and drummer Bruce MacFarlane sing plaintive and indelibly charming stories of awkwardness and missed chances at love. It’s make-out and waiting room music at its best. Lyrically, the majority of their songs are sadly sweet but heavy ballads, drawled beautifully by Anderson, whose vocal range has led to comparisons to indie, rock darlings Elliot Smith and Peter Hayden.
The Skating Club is a success at pure simplicity — there are no driving guitar riffs, no out-of-place drum beats, nothing but meshing reflection and a restraint in tone that leaves their rawly emotive sound to be determined by the listener. Anderson writes as if he is telling you a story, using well-placed rhymes and blending them almost effortlessly with pensive strumming to create a melodious, albeit vulnerable atmosphere.
Their stage presence was ethereal and mellow, lending a laid-back atmosphere. Anderson’s voice can hold well enough alone, proven by several semi-solo numbers he performed such as “Pepper Ann” and “Foolish.” Little was said in between tunes except a heartfelt and somber “Thank you,” but not much else was really necessary. Anderson needed no nonsensical banter to make the crowd sway back and forth in appreciation.
Remy Zero broke through the introspective ambience as the opening strains to their strictly instrumental first and title track, “The Golden Hum” announced their arrival. The band immediately threw itself into, “Prophest,” their hit off the 1998 album Villa Elaine. Cinjun Tate shook his head in apparent disbelief as he exchanged slow, wide smiles with his band mates. “I can tell this is already going to be my favorite show of the whole tour,” he said.
Tate led the group into a heartfelt mixture of brit-pop stylings, Radiohead-esque layers and distortions and Bono-like anthems. It isn’t surprising that critics have jumped to compare Remy Zero to their established predecessors in the complex and incestuous world of prog-rock, brit-pop and textured sound. The band does do this, but still they manages to carve a maturing and constantly developing role of their own.
“Bitter” and “Glorious #1” (The Golden Hum) drive an emotional ride from the cynical to the optimistic, and “Hermes Bird” (Villa Elaine) is a gorgeous melody of natural lyrical and instrumental progression. The well-shaped sound made possible on The Golden Hum by producer Jack Joseph Puig (Weezer, Green Day) is not only boldly apparent on the album, but in their live display as well. It is rare when a band comes across as polished and put-together on the stage as they do on an expensive stereo system; Remy Zero makes this transition seem almost effortless.
Taking occasional swigs from a bottle of cheap champagne, Tate urged the crowd over and over to sing the lyrics as loudly as possible so he wouldn’t forget the words. He constantly translated his soaring vocals through his body language, using both hands and eyes to communicate his meaning to an even higher degree than the music itself allowed. The rest of the band conveyed their passion just as well in their own forms. Cain’s fingers jangled across his guitar strings and he kneeled in front of his effects pedals as if it were a misplaced music shrine, creating elongated riffs and powerful chords full of wonder and distortion. Slay traveled slowly back and forth across the stage, bopping to his sliding bass beats between the drum set and occasionally directly into Tate or Cain, offering an apologetic but teasing grin.
Tate introduced several of his songs with a short explanation. The magnetic “I’m Not Afraid” resulted from a bet Tate made with Travis lead singer Fran Healy to write a song that gets across one message: “I f–k ing rock, no matter what anyone else says,” as Tate declared. For “Out/In,” the upbeat and layered song that creates strength and clarity, “This song is about what you tell someone when they are amazing, but think that they can’t do something.”
“Perfect Memory,” a skillfully accompanied track on The Golden Hum, is a trademarked solo song for Tate when played live. He ordered the lights to go down, the smoke machines turned on, and he allowed his startlingly beautiful voice to take off over a painted acoustic guitar with the words “There’s a forest in my hand” scrawled across the body. “I wrote this song about when my father died, because I thought I couldn’t go on. I want everyone to think of something so miserable that when you think of it, you can’t think of anything else,” Tate said.
The upbeat rockers “Grammery,” “Smile,” and “Belong,” were showered on the crowd like rain. The glorious “Belong” seemed to be a favorite, and likely the next possible single, providing superbly attractive hooks and love lorn lyrics of devotion and tenderness. (“Summer quickly faded/all the stars have turned to stone/out in the woods we waited/cause anywhere with you I knew I was home.”) “Impossibility” was yet another display of hardcore motion and musical movement, and “Save Me,” served to tie up all loose ends. “The key to this song is that you have to sing as loud as you possibly can,” Tate implored.
The set ended with the older “Chromosome,” which created an unearthly feeling and removed ambience as the band jammed back and forth to this harder, unprocessed song. Tate came back solo for the encore, playing “Life In Rain” off ***Villa Elaine, a lovely lo-fi declaration of understanding, followed by the rocking b-side “Apology.”
Remy Zero ended a set pulled tightly together with Tate’s elevated range and the band’s remarkably powerful, yet sensitive sound that washed over the crowd. “Hollow,” finished with Cain nearly throwing his guitar to the floor with intensity and leaving whining distortion on to play the audience out.
“This is the last song,” Tate said. “Make it seem like this is the last song of your f–ing life.”
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