Demos

Santiago - Demo EP

Liam McGrady 20/08/2006

Rating: 3/5

Santiago are from Durham. That's in the North East for the benefit of our Southern readers. Now I've got a mate from Durham, and being the young chap about town that he is, I thought I'd ask if he'd ever come across this particular five piece Rock and Roll band. Here's his reply: “Never heard of 'em but they're only bairns like - wor franny mighta heard of 'em - I'll ask her when she gets in. She loves the band scene now like.” Once again for the benefit of our Southern readers, that roughly translates as “No I'm afraid I haven't heard of this band, but they are only young so my sister Fran may have come across them.” Fear not though, there are some from round those Northern parts with a little more eloquence than my friend Patrick; the members of Santiago for example.

“Stripes are coming down, you cover life over, they cover you over/Lines are tracing round, smooth out the edges regardless of feelings and time.” So goes the opening lines of 'Fade'. And okay, the words are kind of ambiguous and maybe meaningless to you and me; but you've got to admit they're nice and poetic and stuff. Musically Santiago fall somewhere between the Joy Division influenced Post-Punk (especially on 'Base Zero' with its bag of bones drumming and metallic guitar stabs) and Hope Of The States before they started peddling second rate, NME approved, “Indie Rock”. In an unfortunate twist at the end of this demo, vocalist Matias starts doing a Johnny “Whoa, oh, ah, oh” Borrell impression on 'New Puritans', but thankfully it's not enough to marr the impression made on the epic tracks that come before.

Santiago Website

Myspace