Hotel Utah September 1, 2004 Review by Jake Thomas I feel overwhelmingly unqualified and unsure as to what exactly I should write about Pepito. The music was a mix of Kraftwerk-y techno, heavy bass, a little rock…made me think somewhat of Pizzacato 5. I think I’ll coin this sort of music “post-disco”, which is just as stupid a descriptor as “post-rock”, only different and yet somehow fitting. For lack of better terminology, it was dance music for kids who don’t like dance music. For the most part, the music was all pre-recorded; so it had a very “karaoke” feel to it. The vocals were very fetching, sung nearly entirely in Spanish, and switched off pretty frequently between the guy and the gal in the group. Additionally, they had a visual show that was very entertaining and totally keyed in to the songs that were playing; this obviously doesn’t leave much room to steer from the pre-meditated path, but since I’d never seen them before it didn’t bother me any (I suppose multiple viewings would settle this as well, in seeing how much or how often they switch things up). I liked it all quite a bit, but I was a bit dumbfounded at the same time by the whole affair. And to top things off, the female half of the duo was incredibly attractive. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but when you have a combination of good music and attractive female band members, you’re probably really going to enjoy the show. I’ve seen Thee More Shallows a few times now, and with each successive viewing I fall more and more in love with the band. I would be hard pressed to come up with many (if any) albums that have come out this year that are better than their still-unreleased-in-the-US second album. It is truly a masterpiece, not just on the local level but national as well. The show was very mellow, and not particularly long, but great nonetheless. They seemed to play an equal number of songs from the previous album as well as tracks from the forthcoming release; and while I enjoyed everything played, the new songs really stuck out to me as the stronger of the bunch. The growth the group has made from the first album to the second is pretty obvious – sonically, the music has that “dense yet sparse” feel that very few groups can manage correctly (Low and Codeine being the only two that come to my mind); and the vocals…David Kessler has always had a fantastic tone to his voice, and the addition of Odessa Chen has really added that missing piece – it was a piece that you didn’t necessarily recognize as missing at first, but once you it was added, it all made perfect sense. And not that it’s a competition with Pepito, but Odessa ranks extremely high on the hotness meter as well…between these two groups, the visual stimulation alone makes you want to get off your ass at home watching “Antiques Roadshow” reruns and go take in some live music. --- Previous Thee More Shallows review and photos: Review: March 10, 2003 @ Make-Out Room Review & Photos - November 8, 2002 @ Hemlock Tavern ©2004playinginfog.com |