Silt & Sparta - Live Review

What an extraordinary mixture! Icelandic Silt & American Sparta both bands were fantastic, with their own very different personalities and ways of connecting with the crowd.

Silt were the first band on, not very well known in England the initial reaction from the crowd was a lot better than the band could have expected. The main front man is Heidar who sings and plays guitar, Raggi plays bass and Hallo Plays drums and sings backing vocals. Rather unusual that Halli did most of the talking from behind his drum kit. With a fun eclectic play list and a crowd pleasing personality, judging by the listeners reaction Silt gained quite a few fans from this gig.

The Icelandic bunch played all the songs on their new EP Called "In Line" (Check out the review in the music archive) talking to all 3 guys after they played I asked them who their musical influences where all three came back with the same artist, Neil Young.

Sparta was the final act for the evening the El Paso based 4-piece is the result of At the Drive In breaking up. ATDI disbanded just when they were set to explode on the British music scene. The bands sudden success took the fun away and this lead to the break up. Soon after realizing they still craved playing music three of the former members Jim Ward, Paul Hinojos and Tony Hajjar, came together along with Mat Miller a new recruit who plays bass. The line up has changed since the days of At The Drive In, All for the better now Jim Ward Fronts the band playing guitar and vocals, Paul Hinojos who used to play bass for ATDI now plays guitar and Tony Hajjar is still the drummer. Cedric and Omar who used to play in ATDI are now in another band called Mars Volta.

Sparta's music is "less dense" than ATDI, I spoke to Jim (lead vocals) after the gig he told me he is still very cautious about singing when he is performing on stage. This isn't obvious though he sings very well. The comparisons between ATDI and Sparta are bound to be made, Sparta are every bit as good as ATDI, even more so if they continue to write songs like the ones featured on Austere.

When listening to Sparta you can tell these guys where the main driving force behind ATDI.

Both bands were really down to earth and watched one another play then stayed and talked to their fans after the gig in the bar. If you didn't get the chance to see At the Drive In play, go and have a look at Sparta.

Like wise watch out for Silt I'm sure we will be hearing a lot more about them.