When Hootananny post their monthly listing, one night that always catches the eye is the Netsounds Takeover night, and this Saturday was no exception bring together up and at ‘em Inverness band, Silver Coast, and Glasgow’s Rockness main stage veterans, So Many Animal Calls.
First up were Silver Coast. Born around a year ago from the supernova of A Thousand Stars, the lads have set about building a strong base, and gaining a reputation as one of the hardest working bands locally. Tonight’s set demonstrated a mix of their old and new, giving us a healthy dose of their guitar based melodic indie rock.
The hard work is also producing confident sets, no doubt aided by a recent support slot for Fatherson, and delivering music that could fill larger arenas. In fact ‘Runaway’ is an anthemic example of where they can take their music. Carefully crafted, and mixed in pace, the set ends on ‘As She Cries’ where the guitars really chase along to leave you wanting just that little bit more.
Silver Coast are taking, and making opportunities for themselves, so much so they are playing a couple of acoustic sets at ‘Best of the Wurst’, a sausage and beer festival in Grantown next Saturday afternoon alongside two other local acts, Dougie Scott and Hannah Finlayson.
Glasgow’s So Many Animal Calls rip into their set, even if youthful singer, Sean McKenna looks as if he is too young to be up this late at night. He punches a fair bit of emotion into his vocal and it is easy to hang on his every word as their songs, an example being the memorable ‘Almost Something is Better Than Nothing’.
Sean always comes up for air at the end of each song with a ‘thank you’ part in acknowledgement, and part in signalling the end of each number. It’s not just about the vocals though as the band are driven along by attention grabbing drums and all action guitars. They have songs that stick to you and noisily burrow under your skin. ‘She Was Speaking From The Bottom of the Sea’ and set ender ‘Traps’ are most notable in this respect.
Once again Netsounds bring out the best in local and national acts, and with that I head off already making a mental note to keep a space in my social calendar for their Christmas gig.
