Pop and Jazz Reviews : Dynamic Set From the Pale Saints

Here’s a problem: How does a band whose most enticing creations in the studio are also its most somnolent give a dynamic concert?

The English group the Pale Saints had a solution on Monday at Bogart’s in Long Beach: play like a rock band. The quartet emphasized the most upfront elements of its music, with Graeme Naysmith making like a ‘60s garage band guitarist with direct yet twisting lines, while drummer Chris Cooper leaned hard on the stuttered rhythms that keep the band’s music from drifting into the ether.

Not that the band sounds like Aerosmith or anything. It’s still relatively dreamy in approach, adding to the catalogue of the 4AD label (the people who brought you the Cocteau Twins), not burning it. That’s especially so with bassist Ian Masters’ thin voice getting more time than rhythm guitarist Meriel Barham’s purer, stronger singing. But the Pale Saints’ sound is more varied and deep texturally and less reliant on pure atmosphere than that of label-mate Lush, to which it bears more than a passing resemblance at times.

The neatest trick was that after establishing the sonic ground rules through several songs, the group made a point of breaking them. The mid-set highlight was a hypnotic instrumental featuring brittle keyboards and heavily echoed guitar for something that sounded like Martin Denny’s “Exotica” on Mars (the planet or the radio station). It was a brush stroke that added even more hues to a show that was anything but pale.