Passenger
With support from The Mummers
Monto Water Rats, London
Wednesday 4th July 2007
By Pete Feenstra
Passenger
Something is stirring in Brighton and it's not just the breeze at the end of the pier. Gigs are full to bursting point, creativity is at a high, and bands like Twelve Stone Toddler, Blood Red Shoes and tonight's support band The Mummers are turning industry heads. So are headliners Passenger, a band built around the songs of Mike Rosenberg and Andrew Phillips - and if the likes of Coldplay and Damien Rice were frequently referenced in the course of a set that veered between plaintive love songs and observational narratives, then the antecedents of Paul Simon also hung heavy in the air, both in terms of the flow of words and their intense delivery.
There's a driving pop sensibility about Passenger's songs that rides on the back of a number of subtle melodic keyboard runs and buries itself deep into some up tempo acoustic rhythms and sweeping choruses. And while the band repeated their formulaic song structures a number of times, revisiting a trademark opening vocal, a brief stop-time hiccup followed by the band pouring itself energetically into the main body of the song, there is enough in Rosenberg's lyrics to overcome the doubters. The set brought passion and heartfelt emotion to a lyrical palate that, over the course of several songs, cleverly slipped from the first to third person. Mike's annoying habit of delivering some of his eloquent lyrics in a mock south London voice almost detracted from the emotional nuances but, ultimately, his energy just about swept aside any such reservations.
In truth, Passenger are all about work in progress. They already have a batch of catchy songs and stories that are full of hindsight, pathos, and unrequited love. Their music is made up of folk tinged melodies with counterbalancing dynamics born of introspective acoustic intros that give way to some full band epic bluster, topped by sweeping and often compelling choruses. Some of the songs come close to perfection, others, such as Wicked Man's Rest - the title track from the new album - flatter to deceive, as it doesn't quite deliver the same 'straight to the vein' pay-off that characterises some of the evening's other songs. But vocalist Rosenberg makes the most of his versatile ability to phrase, hitting a near falsetto on the chorus of Walk In The Rain and teasing out the poppy refrain of Walk You Home.
The band also have an impressive single in Do What You Like, but it was a newer, reflective song, which, I think, was entitled Things We've Never Done, that really hit the mark with some clever rhymes that beautifully brought out the song's meaning. Compared to that effort, the rest of the night was all about lyrical twists and turns, fleeting moments of intensity and occasional melodic contours, in between a mix of feverish angst and first person introspection. And while it may seem curious to explore such sentiments with a pop structure, it's a testament to the power of Rosenberg's songs that his words overcame both his own on-stage shyness, and a tendency to slip into the same repeated grooves and tempos to deliver his message. But deliver it he did, with an enjoyable set that suggests both he and the band have a bright a future.
For more details on Passenger, see their page here on Ents24, or visit www.passengerofficial.com.
