KING OF THE SUGARCOATED TONGUES

I saw these guys playing a free gig in the Berlin Mauerpark. Keeping in mind the limitations of the portable amplifiers and restricted drumkit, I was absolutely amazed at the quality and professionalism. We'd travelled to Berlin especially to see another gig by Gazpacho and as we wandered the nearby fleamarket we heard this band playing and went to watch. The first thing that struck me was the vocals by Raj Siva-Rajah, his voice is uncannily similar to Marco Glühmann from Sylvan. In fact the whole sound of the Sunpilots is very similar to Sylvan and fans of theirs would be well advised to check out these guys. Another reviewer has likened the Sunpilots to the Mars Volta but I can't see that myself. They are modern day troubadours who spend their whole time travelling and gigging and apparently play around five gigs per week regularly and the tightness and quality of all this constant playing shows. I bought both of their albums from them at the gig and they've been on rotation in my player since! This album is still available for free from their website so it's well worth downloading. This album is full of high quality numbers but the track,The Captain is probably the one which displays their range the best, showing off Raj's vocal range and Bob Spencer's guitar work which is quite superb yet avoids showy technical displays of let's-see-how-many-notes-I-can-play-in-three-seconds!

Highly recommended for fans of bands like Sylvan, Anathema, later Porcupine Tree.