Reviews

Artists: The Cellophane Flowers
Venue: The Enterprise
Town: London
Date: 17 June 2010
Website: www.myspace.com/thecellophaneflowers

In a pub, on a Sunday afternoon, the conversation got around to "what bands are you seeing this week?" My contribution was The Cellophane Flowers at The Enterprise in Chalk Farm, on Thursday. There was a general shaking of heads "Indie Hell" was the considered opinion - ordinarily they would have been right, but they hadn't heard the bands new EP.

This gig started as I pretty much imagined it would. Eight o'clock is an early start and, despite a lack of promoter, the band did well to get started by quarter past and the crowd was split roughly 50/50 between those who paid to get in and those that didn't.

The Cellophane Flowers were, unfortunately, a touch disappointing as they suffer from looking like four individuals on stage rather than a group. Lead singer Francesca Corradini must take the lions share of the blame for this - I kept looking for someone at the side of the stage saying "now put your hand in the air" and "now jump off the stage and swing the mike around" - but the awkwardness was completed by a bass player who looked as graceful as teenager who got up in the morning and found he had shot up four inches since he went to bed and a guitarist who had his boots nailed to the floor. The only one who looked at all natural, with his shades and loud, loud shirt was the drummer.

But, and this is the biggest but you will ever get, they sounded amazing. Not just in a technical way, their music has a real power and urgency about it and they have a cohesion in their playing that is so lacking in their stage movements. The set was based around their new EP "If I Was A Girl" and the strongest songs were the title track and the ridiculously catchy, Madchester inspired "Freeze Me".

I would take a guess and say that this band has spent all their time in rehearsal rooms honing their playing so it becomes second nature. If they play and play and play until they become as tight on stage as they are on, The Cellophane Flowers will be a very good, possibly exceptional, band.

This was not exactly Indie Heaven, but it was a long way from being Indie Hell.

The Jacket