Live at Glasslands, Brooklyn
Fact: The dancing soul knows no curfew. Taking the stage just after midnight, Brooklyn electric blues-revivalists Earl Greyhound lit rust-flecked Glasslands aflame. Twas’ a night in which local hipsters were stretched and slashed, quartered and put back together again; all by the glory of rock and roll.

The good men of Les Savy Fav were on hand to take in the affair, nodding their head approvingly at the fuzzy atmospherics of The Gang. The Brooklynites’ few minutes on stage seemed to suffer from muddy sound, their rambunctious blend of Psychedelic Furs and Gang of Four never really taking off. One could sense kernels of something great in the mix, brief moments that peeked their heads through the cacophony only too rarely.

Despite falling prey to a power outage in the early minutes of their set, Dragons of Zynth bended brains, spitting out acid-glazed gems of expansive psych-rock with thunderous panache. They briefly became hardcore heroes, preaching and dancing wildly like shamans of rock from a stage vocalist Aku never hesitated to leap from. Think TV on the Radio with massive, extraterrestrial fangs. While slighted by the gallery space’s crusty sound system, the band more than compensated by conjuring a
sort of “make-your own-adventure” set: muddy sound and blankets of dissonance, listeners able to take guitar parts where they liked, for walks or frenzied flights of fancy. When they were finished, the crowd pleaded with them for one more. They acquiesced.

Minutes later but deep into yawn territory, Earl Greyhound quietly hopped into position. Matt Whyte is a tall glass of water, his Les Paul a different animal altogether. Serving up meaty chunks of riffage just as good enough to fuck as they are to eat, Whyte knows how to make love to his instrument. But when Whyte shares vocal duties with the soulful pipes of bassist Kamara Thomas, the end result is divine and a vocal dynamic that
translated only too well to the stage. Whyte jumped headlong into opener “Monkey”, eight minutes of mystifying guitar acrobatics
and vocal harmonies. “SOS” was a tasty blend of cream and crunch, Whyte and Thomas’s vocals dovetailing beautifully, “It’s Over” a bouncy pop delight that borrowed less from Zeppelin and more from Big Star. It should be noted that drummer Ricc Sheridan sits behind a bass drum larger than most European countries, his arms like redwoods in sleeves. And while he once played with Lenny Kravitz, he still hits with the force of a thousand Mt. Etna’s. Together they form a very small army of bulldozers, that despite chinks in sound and acoustics, boast a
sonic assault that’s stadium-bound and headphone-ready. While certainly not reinventing the wheel sonically, Earl Greyhound’s live act is just propulsive enough to teach the human body new ways to sway and shuck. Heads banged and bodies flung themselves like Silverbacks at the flimsy iron of the makeshift balcony. But no matter where you stood or how you moved,
you left with tinnitus.

Earl Greyhound Official Site
Some Records