How Garbo Died are an electronic/postpunk act from Glasgow who release their debut EP today. It’s called Muted Response and is available from their BandCamp page through honesty box sales.
The 4-track EP (the SoundCloud player below has the songs from the single as well as some others) will be launched at three gigs in Glasgow, Sneaky Pete’s in Edinburgh and another in Aberdeen (details are on the web); it’s pretty good. The softer, more ethereal voice of Kevin Gilday is juxtaposed against jagged guitars and frenetic, myriad loops. This duality is best exhibited between My Life In Statistics and Aluminium Army; there’s a visceral downbeat fatalism to the lyrical themes, but it’s delivered via sneak attack rather than the apocalypticism of Nine Inch Nails.
From their other reviews, it sounds as if they’re pretty awesome live too: Ayetunes said “something quite thrilling and brilliant to witness. Uncompromising and brutal, but brilliant…Jagged guitars, occasionally beaten out of a seemingly failing instrument allied with loops and soaring vocals give things a certain post apocalyptic feel at times, and you get the idea they wouldn’t be all that bothered if a large slice of humanity was wiped off the face of the Earth either”, whilst Bluesbunny Reviews said that they “sledgehammered an unsuspecting audience with a jaw dropping set that positively reeked of diffidence and contempt. Front man Kevin Gilday took his words of self loathing out into the audience and ranted like a man possessed by the spirits of Aidan Moffat and Bertolt Brecht whilst angry guitars and crude loops provided the tortured soundtrack. An acquired taste, for sure, but in this shitty city, they deserve to be legend”.
