The Gown – student newspaper at Queen's University Belfast.

REVIEW: Escape Act – Balance

Empty shops are sad places; shutters permanently down, no customers and the shelves free of stock. They are cold, lifeless, depressing. They are signs of lost hopes and dreams, of economic hardship. With the help of Out of Place and The Streetwise Samba Band, Escape Act changed all this on Saturday for the release of their second album, Balance, turning an empty storefront in Belfast’s Cornmarket into a place more exciting than the Apple Store on iPhone release day.

BY BEN FINCH

With the sound of samba drums and melodicas spilling out onto the street, passers-by were stopped in their tracks and sucked towards the door to see what was happening. Children, teenagers and grown adults were shown how to play ‘Single Thought’, the first track from the album, before starting a carnival through the centre of Belfast. As the sound of drums reverberated off the close walls of Pottinger Entry, confusing people eating their McDonalds and vaguely worrying police outside City Hall, the band snaked through the city centre, losing formation, joining up and bringing the carnival atmosphere to everyone in town.

Then, an (almost) family friendly gig with Out of Place. With the fuzz turned down slightly, Escape Act rattled through what must have been their most surreal performance to date, as people walked past and craned their necks for a look. Rather than restricting the band, the choice of venue and a young audience allowed for a low key performance and enabled the intricacies of Balance to be heard in full.

The next day, the warmth of McHugh’s Basement provided an altogether different atmosphere to the heat of the carnival. Tom McShane began the night with the incredibly simple and beautiful ‘Flowers’. The room appeared to shrink as all attention in the room turned to McShane and silence fell as he began to pluck his guitar. Shy and slightly awkward, McShane’s songs belie this appearance. They are full of depth and at times pain, as heard on ‘The Ballad of Morton Candell’, which is the story of an architect whose only success in life is a station on the Northern Line.

McShane was joined onstage by Chris Heaney, singer and guitarist of Escape Act, on keyboard to play two of the quieter songs from Balance, ‘K’ and ‘Flat Ocean’. Slower and sadder than the rest of the album, these songs suited McShane’s style of playing. However, he was unable to remember ‘Flat Ocean’ in full, losing some of the song’s power in the process.

You Kiss By The Book take their name from Juliet’s famous line to Romeo, but none of the implied criticism. Their superior Alt-Country is unlikely to sell many records even though their mid-tempo songs evoke the sound of a rainy day with a rainbow in the distance. The singer’s voice is reminiscent of Colin Meloy after a night out but this is often counterpointed by an almost cheerful keyboard. You Kiss By The Book also showed they have a sense of humour with their untitled ‘Feel good hit of the summer’ taking many of the tropes of dance music while the lyrics tell of a broken up relationship.

Following much of the introspection of the night, Escape Act where full of energy as they celebrated the release of Balance. Playing faster, harder and fuzzier than in Out of Place, some of the delicacy in the songs was lost, but no matter for it was an excellent performance. Taking the interaction from Saturday’s performance further, various members of the audience were invited up to play and sing with the band. During the excellent ‘Pressure’, Escape Act were enjoying themselves so much they forgot to call up their volunteers, only remembering during ‘Salt In Your Eye’.
Escape Act Balance tried to cause a stir in Belfast and succeeded. An excellent album, with an excellent release, the tracks are versatile enough to be played both quietly, in places as strange as an empty shop, and loudly, in the dark basement of a pub.

Tags: Belfast, Ben Finch, Escape Act, Gown, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, students, The Gown

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Arts + Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.