Live: Pale Seas

27th October

Gullivers

6/10

“We’ll all be on first name basis after this.” The tongue in cheek comment by frontman Jacob Scott encapsulates the thoughts of everyone in the room. With a capacity of 150 or so, Gullivers isn’t the largest place but even this venue can’t disguise the lack of a crowd. Stood with the 20ish people, you can’t help but wonder what happened to a band that came from such promising beginnings. With sellout single ‘Something or Nothing’, and over 1000000 plays of Paul Butler (The Bees/Devendra Banhart)-produced ‘Bodies’, 2012 was the year everything went right for Pale Seas. The mixture of acoustic and electric guitar forming a well rounded mellow sound that when combined with the soft tones of Scott’s voice made for some hauntingly beautiful music. It was through such songs that the band enjoyed critical acclaim and sell out headline shows.

But in 2014 Manchester, the prospect of selling out was a long way away. A pity for a band that can, in fairness to them, produce some cracking tunes. The kind that conjure up memories of some forgotten childhood memory in a summer long gone. Unfortunately such songs are few in number, with the bands releases consisting of the previously mentioned singles and new EP Places to Haunt. With such a minimal discography the band are in need of more substance behind them before they can generate a larger audience. An audience that, though once captivated, has grown fractured in the 2 year gap that it took to release Places. Hopefully Pale Seas are able to once again generate a buzz around themselves as it is desevered for a band of such good quality but without an audience gigs have no atmosphere and without an atmosphere you can’t have a great gig.