The Black Tambourines

Posted on 08/08/2012 by admin

Bands who can play badly, perform with no cohesion and be generally awful live, yet still provide a thoroughly entertaining and captivating spectacle, surely have half of the battle won. I have seen The Black Tambourines several times over the last year and on each occasion they have left the audience breathless. Rarely do they seem to finish on their own terms, usually having to cut their set short due to technical failures or breaking their instruments due to over enthusiasm, yet somehow this all adds to the charmingly chaotic aura that surrounds the band. Having released three EPs, (one of which came through the brilliant Art is Hard records) and completed several tours of the UK, the band have begun to leave a trail of discord and clutter around the country as well as playing a show in Barcelona for the Spanish branch of Vice Magazine. Their music is almost as scrappy as their stage show. Songs like ’27-25 Blues’ and ‘Tommy’ toe the line between The Black Lips and Wavves, while ‘A Lot of Friends’ channels the spirit of early 90s slacker rock and contains one of the best ‘drops’ and biggest choruses you’ll hear this side of the millennium.

Tom Roper