What would happen if your generic indie-pop/rock band had a weird drug trip? Well, it might just be . The Oxford, England quartet made its Denver debut on Thursday at a packed .
Judging by appearances, Glass Animals fits your typical indie description: There’s a lead singer who plays guitar, a drummer, a keyboardist and another keyboardist who also alternates on bass guitar.
However, the music of Glass Animals — led by singer and composer Dave Bayley — is psychedelic and weird, yet extremely accessible. The band has promoted its debut album, “Zaba,” released this summer, as sounding like “a backdrop of man-made wilderness.” At times, the band’s studio debut is poppy, at other times electronic. Itap R&B melding into trip hop. Itap fantastical. It sucks you into strange landscapes, makes you feel like you’re inside a lush forest, experiencing all the sights and sounds that might otherwise be intensified from a magic mushroom trip.
“Zaba” features absurd song titles like “Intruxx,” “Wyrd” and “Cocoa Hooves,” and strange lyrics, mostly about plants and animals, inspired by Bayley’s neuroscience background and tales like “The Island of Doctor Moreau” and “Heart of Darkness.” Glass Animals’ songs are perhaps best experienced while watching one of their hallucinogenic music videos, which feature claymation and stop-motion (see “Pools” and “Psylla”).
Live — at least at the sold-out Larimer Lounge — some of these intriguing elements got lost in the mix. Glass Animals’ polished studio sound was a bit muffled live. It was like their sticky sweet melodies were struggling to surface, like bubbles rising out of a puddle of mud. Instead of the aforementioned lush forest, the show was more like a sweaty affair inside a damp, dark cave. You could almost smell the duskiness. The band’s sound would have been much better suited for a larger venue like the Bluebird.
But that did not stop Glass Animals from engaging the audience in sensuous dance and camaraderie in rhythm to its short set of songs, which was mostly comprised of tracks from its debut album. Bayley’s atmospheric vocals floated over dreamlike synth melodies, slinking basslines and hypnotic jungle beats that marched along, song after song. At times, Glass Animals’ tropical sound was so distinct it was hard to differentiate individual songs. It was like a seamless soundtrack to a drug-induced dream.
But a few things happened to break up the continuity. “We’re going to perform a little experiment,” Bayley assured the crowd partway through the set, before opening act, rapper Rome Fortune, from Atlanta, came back onstage to freestyle over one of the songs. Later, Glass Animals performed a crooning cover of Kanye Westap “Love Lockdown.”
Glass Animals ended its set with “Pools,” which had the crowd dancing and sweating with abandon. Afterwards, the band mingled with the crowd, shaking hands and chatting for a brief while. All in all, it was a great live introduction to the weird world of Glass Animals. Hopefully they will return to play in a bigger venue.
Setlist:
Psylla
Black Mambo
Exxus
Gooey
Walla Walla
Intruxx
Hazey
Toes
Flip
Cocoa Hooves
Wyrd
Love Lockdown (Kanye West cover)
Pools
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Steve Shultz is a community journalist at The Denver Post and a new contributor to Reverb.
Tom Skelley is a Denver photographer and new contributor to Reverb.
