Live Review: The Veils

The Empty Bottle, Chicago, 6.17.07

When it comes to British indie bands, long American tours are not for the faint of heart. You're no longer protected by the fawning aura of NME subeditors or the adoring crowds or the many summer festivals. Jet-setting between the old country's capitals and sipping Sangria in Barcelona morph into long hours in the bus and the dinner buffet at the Triple J just outside of Topeka.

For this reason, while many have tried to break America, most have ended up being broken by it. Oasis did a pretty good job. Radiohead famously got the weird "Amnesiac" to number 2 on the Billboard chart. But for every Coldplay, there's a Suede, a Manic Street Preachers, a Mansun--eccentric British acts that the American musical and geographical landscapes chewed up and spat out. So what for The Veils?

Listen to "The Wild Son":

[Download the MP3 Here]

Initial signs are promising. Three years after falling apart before the American tour of their first album, "The Runaway Found", The Veils passed through Chicago promoting the infinitely more dark and complex "Nux Vomica". Confidence and spirits were running high. The venue was surprisingly full, and Finn was eager to regale them with his (newfound?) stage presence, a sort of cross between the drunken swagger of early-Libertines Pete Doherty and the manic guitar attack of Jonny Greenwood.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the set was light on tracks from "The Runaway Found". Only "The Wild Son" made it into the proper set, while the band played a revamped version of "More Heat than Light" as the encore. "Nux Vomica" songs like "Pan" and the title track impressed with their ferocity, with Finn taking violent stabs at his guitar and Henning's snare drum cracking on beat. Finn's wail on "Pan" of "You're nothing but a child!" was ripe with the sort of emotion you would expect from one of this generation's notable talents.

Listen to "Pan":

[Download the MP3 Here]

That's not all to say the The Veils are the well-oiled machine they'll need to be to conquer America. Songs? Check. Stage presence? Check. Harmonies? Uh, no. Normally this reviewer can do without the real heavy harmonies--give me "Paint it Black" over "God Only Knows" any day--but the issue for The Veils is that they used harmonies so effectively on "Nux Vomica". Their absence live is thus hugely disappointing. "Advice For Young Mothers to Be", the album's catchy centerpiece and first single, sounded like a tired reggae number. "One Night on Earth" was similarly empty. A small point, perhaps, but one that will surely need to be sorted out in the near future.

At the risk of sounding grandiose, I would venture to say that Finn Andrews is the natural heir to Jeff Buckley's throne. Whereas others inspired by Buckley have long since meandered down the pop cul-de-sac, Andrews has courageously led his band into intriguing and uncharted territory. Listeners will want to pay very close attention now and in the future. If America doesn't break him, that is.

[Read my review of "Nux Vomica"]
[Official Website]
[On Myspace]