Demos

The Sailplanes - Swoosh

Alex Worsnip 30/04/2005

Rating: 4/5

The Sailplanes must be a relatively new band - a Google search reveals that they don't appear on a single website. This could be a worrying sign, but after a listen to their new demo EP, it merely gives me enormous pleasure to give them their first taste of web exposure - because either this band is destined for some serious status or the world is a very unjust place. It's always wonderfully satisfying to receive a good demo, because you really want to like demos - it's just usually the case that they're unsalvageable. Swoosh, however, could not be further from this. Excluding a thirty-second drum instrumental and a perfectly acceptable but not particularly transforming cover of Sleater-Kinney's 'Things You Say', we are left with two tracks to give us a real flavour of The Sailplanes. Both are excellent - 'Indifference' is does Sonic Youth better than anything they themselves have done in years. But the real stunner is lead-off track 'I See You Walk' - an instantly memorable hook intoned in Stacey Hine's
disaffected vocal combines with weaving guitar effects in the verses and squalls of discordantly beautiful noise in the chorus. It's a genuine fully formed track, expertly constructed and even reasonably produced. If it's anything to go by, they have a future - they're the kind of band I'd sign on the spot in some dreamlike parallel universe where I own a record label.