Sun Airway
Live at Glasslands
Saturday, February 12, 2011
When the guy from Sun Airway sings, “Waking up is an exercise in trust” Saturday night at I’ll go ahead and compare to Chris Martin’s again, Jon Barthmus’ vocal melodies are evenly poured over the multiple moving parts, giving the songs a certain weight — part of the reason why they always seem to muddle the line between happy and sad.
Through the course of the show, no one sounds impossibly blissed-out like Panda Bear or yelps like Avey, but there is still an undeniable current of energy. For one, you can feel this guy’s voice reaching. For another, the melodies are instantly danceable, and adding guitar and bass to what is on record a two-man synth-drum band allows for all the buildups on the album to finally see a release, in traditional rock-out mode. Animal Collective for the everyman? Maybe so. In a review of their set at the #Offline Fest this fall, Jeff Klingman wrote, “This shit is going to catch on, like, for sure.” Seriously, what’s taking so long?
…And on that note, you can catch them February 25 opening for Small Black at Knitting Factory before they make their way to Austin for SXSW.
See? Happy, sad, whimsical, romantic: