S-1 Committee Quick Review

Man. Sometimes things sound a lot different on Myspace than they do in person. S-1 Committee is one of those bands. We really liked what we heard on Myspace: muffled, noisy, lo-fi sloppiness with soft vocals that you couldn't really understand. It was interesting and fairly catchy if nothing else. Live, however, the band seems to be a different proposition, as the vocals move front and center in the mix, creating an entirely different sound. For s-1 Committee, this is not a good thing.

Now, we don't think that you have to be a great singer to be a great singer, you just have to be interesting or compelling in some way. If you can't sing or write lyrics, fine. A lot of bands we love (Jesus and Mary Chain for example) can't do either. But damn it, if that is the case you've gotta hide it a little bit. Put some reverb on the vocals. Turn them down in the mix. Slur your words. Something. That is what the singer for S-1 should have done last night, because it was the vocals that really held them back. The lyrics were fairly immature, and delivered in a loud, cutesy and off-key manner that really didn't seem to go along at all with what the rest of the band was doing. The music was actually pretty good, and the band was able to capture much of what we liked about their Myspace songs live, which was probably a fairly difficult task. And we wouldn't have even minded the singing so much if we just didn't have to hear it so clearly. But we did, and as a result we were less than impressed with the show.

If these guys make some adjustments from a vocals standpoint, they could be really good band. Until then, however, we'll have to throw them in the "Wait and see" file.