“The Lovely People”
from the EP Music from the Violet Room
2005
iTunes
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What exactly is this? No matter how many times I listen to Sabrosa Purr, I still can’t put my finger on it. The only word that really, truly applies is “moody,” so that’ll be used with great frequency in this review.
But the music? The genre? Classifying the band is hard. Sabrosa Purr are the most mystifying, bizarre, and intriguing group you’ll hear for a while. They can swing from tender folk to bombastic metal at the drop of a hat, and it never seems forced or contrived. The simple answer is that this is a band that loves music, and loves so much of it that they can’t be bothered to choose just one style. How rebellious, how bold.
Music from the Violet Room is just an eight-song EP, but it packs more heart, soul, and balls than most full-length releases. Opener “Nous Sommes” perhaps explains the mystery of Sabrosa Purr best. Instead of a thrilling, pounding song to start us off, it begins with an eerie voice whispering in French “Fermez vos yeux. Voyez-vous?” [“Close your eyes. Do you see?”], with no music to speak of. Clearly “eccentric” is just the tip of the iceberg.
Just when you expected a pretentious odyssey into the depths of the Gaelic mind, in comes “Sabrosa Purr, Pt. 1,” a gloriously trippy exercise in mournful chic. Perhaps this is where those troublesome Pink Floyd comparisons come in, because this is decidedly music to space out to. As vocalist Will Love murmurs “I’d like to touch her hair,” the music floats and hangs in the room like smoke, infusing any substances that touch it with a glamorously moody elegance. “Sabrosa Purr, Pt. 1” is so delicate, so calm that “…By the Water” simply blows it away.
“…By the Water,” summoning all the Nirvana charm it can manage, makes lyrics like “My best friend since I’m 13/ Living through the magazines” seem like a powerful, wounded cry. And then, the one-two-punch of that chorus, a screaming, strained shriek before slipping into calmness again. Like the Pixies, it switches from loud to soft and back again before you know what’s hit you.
If there was any justice, “The Lovely People” would be electrifying iPods everywhere. Opening with a monstrously catchy guitar riff, it spawns a new genre: Rock twang punk-metal. Which hopefully will take off any day now. “Oh no, I can see you!” Love intones as guitarist Jeff Mendel creates an instantly hummable melody. Queens of the Stone Age would kill to be this cool.
And like any good prog-metal-indie-punk album, there must be one gently strummed folk tune. At least, “All the Leaves…” would come off as that, if not for Love’s Robert Plant vocals, which can take even the quietest of tunes and imbue them with a subtle malice. The same vocals come in again with “God Damn You,” slight throwaway in the hair-metal vein that just doesn’t have the edge. Even ending with a squall of guitars can’t give it the oomph flooding the rest of the EP.
“Pink” would make the Floyd themselves show a little respect, with its moody (yes, again), languid charm. With indiscernible lyrics blocked by guitar chords, “Pink” has all the quiet glamour of drug-filled evenings in the suburbs, and hisses with restrained energy. Music from the Violet Room closes with “Liars, Pretty Thieves and Pets,” much like “All the Leaves…” but with a more acoustic, looser folk feel. Lyrics like “Sunlight makes nothing right… Can’t rely on honesty of friends” make Sabrosa Purr seem so much older and world-weary than boys this young should be. But even if the sentiments are forced the music is brilliant.
So, what’s the evidence? Prog vocals, metal guitars, indie aesthetic? The result is simply the wonderful, mind bogglingly unique Sabrosa Purr, so don’t even try explaining it.