Technically ism isn’t a Nordic band, they’re from genteel Brighton on the English south coast but they’ve got a Norwegian front woman, Tyra (Tvedte Kristoffersen), who is also the main lyricist and composer so that will pass muster for tonight as I’m in a generous mood.
That isn’t the only reason I selected ism for tonight’s review though. They are a conceptual album band and there aren’t as many as those as there used to be.
And I like the concept idea that, just as Paul Simon found 50 ways to leave your lover, ism identified nine different ways you can go mad.
I imagine listening to the Donald wittering on every day could count for most of them.
Searching for a sample track my attention was drawn, notwithstanding the Simon connection, to the seventh, ‘My life left me for another woman’.
Reading that they class themselves as an alternative art-rock trio that employs intense, theatrical performances and a “captivating stage presence”, and which reinvents their theme for every performance, adapting elements of their set, visuals, and outfits to match the dress code and concept they’ve designed for the event, I got it into my head that they are a sort of mélange of English indie darlings of the moment The Last Dinner Party and a prog rock band like Genesis.
And judging from this track I’ll stick with that.
It is perhaps unreasonable to judge a concept album on one track but there is some deep stuff going down here in isolation.
It starts off as a whispered and barely audible airy-fairy indie pop song and then appears to stop altogether around the 1:50 mark as if they’d run out of studio time.
Eventually it comes back around with distinctly 1970s prog guitar chords in the fashion of a Genesis track of that era and then somehow morphs into a piece of latter day pop-punk, then rocks out for a short while before settling into a gentle outro.
Musically it’s a stimulating listen but I have to say the song owes much to the passionate yet restrained vocal delivery of Ms Kristoffersen, who may not be Peter Gabriel but who I am sure probably has much the same sort of stage presence as Abigail Morris.
It’s the sort of song that tells me they are probably a band well worth going out of your way to see play live.
I expect to see them playing By:Larm this year if they haven’t done so already. Get that application in!
(Continues after the Spotify link).
The other band members are Matt and Sophie.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bandcalledism
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ismband_
